Steam
by Uakari
Summary: For Bottan.  Steampunk AU: Civil war has torn the country of Nihon apart.  On an abandoned battlefield, a scrap-scavenger stumbles upon the sole survivor buried amongst the wreckage.  Why this man, why now, after everything that has gone before?
1. Overture

**A/N:** This fic is for Bottan, inspired by her fantastically delicious Steampunk Love art (konnichipuu . deviantart .com/#/d39ml9c). She does such wonderful designs for me all the time that I've really wanted to write something specifically for her (at it totally did NOT help that she taunted me with that picture... XD). So, having said that, I feel the need to note that while the picture is Teh Sex, this first chapter is, well, _not _(it'll get there - I swear!). It's a bit (okay, a _lot_) brutal, but I felt that she deserved something with an actual _plot_...which makes things so much more complicated.

So, a couple of words of warning. I really wanted to play with themes of devotion to your loved ones and devotion to your country _and _with the fact that Kurogane is always portrayed as indestructible in the manga because he is super strong and honorable beyond the shadow of a doubt. So, being a horrible person, I stripped him of all circumstances where those would be of any benefit to him (because I certainly wasn't going to take the _traits _away from him!), dropped him into a war where the only way to survive is to dodge bullets quickly and proceeded to beat the crap out of him...

And that is where the story begins...

* * *

The six-legged AT-SV plogged its way through the sea of human debris, hydraulics squealing as it fought to maintain an upright posture atop the mounds of bodies and twisted metal, and steam huffing loudly from its overhead exhaust port with the effort. It paused in its tracks occasionally to allow two long, metallic arms to sweep down and sift through the rubble; metal was precious, and any scrap that might be scavenged from this ravaged battlefield would be a bit of security – however small – for their future survival.

Inside, the pilot cursed quietly and yanked at the swinging lever for the right arm. Something was wrong; possibly an ungreased joint refusing to yield, or maybe a faulty piston that would not slide back into position – either way, the arm was locked into an extended position. This wouldn't have been half as much of a problem if the hand weren't also locked around _something_ deep within the rubble pile; he still had the other arm to work with after all, but this configuration had effectively anchored the scavenger to the spot. He squeezed again at the spring-loaded handle, trying to release the hand's grip, but quickly surrendered and shoved the entire lever upward, cringing only slightly when he heard it bang sharply against its frame. He sighed; he could never diagnose problems with the appendages when he was sitting in the belly of the beast like this, and he certainly did't relish the thought of leaving the relative comfort of the cockpit (it may have been sweltering hot and reeking of sweat and engine grease in here, but it was surely better than setting foot into the stink of human decay beyond its confines). He stared out the small window for a long moment before peeling his goggles from his face and reaching back for a gasmask.

With the mask safely secured, he spun the wheel lock on the top hatch to pop it open and hauled himself, with great effort, to crouch atop the roof of the scavenger. The narrow boarding platform extended only half-way to the shoulder joint and he was forced to slide down the steep side of the cockpit to reach the armored pivot – a tricky maneuver for even the most agile, but a well-practiced one in this case, and he managed to reach the cuff with only a minor snag of his overcoat on a projecting bolt. He unlocked and peeled back the corrugated plates protecting the joint to expose the inner-workings. There didn't appear to be anything lodged in the socket – it would have been difficult for anything to have actually penetrated the armor in the first place – but he swiped the tips of his fingers lightly across the ball just the same. They came back coated in grease, a good sign that the shoulder was well lubed and in working order to be sure, but leaving him no closer to deciphering just what the hell was wrong with the contraption. He weighed his options; he could dig further into the capsule or check the elbow for any superficial damage first. Digging into the joint had the distinct advantage of staying put, but he was also keenly aware that he didn't want to spend more time than absolutely necessary in this place; he would head for the elbow.

The elbow was, by dint of being stuck mid-grasp, positioned well out from the main body of the scavenger and high enough off the ground to render it unreachable by normal means. With practiced ease, the pilot gripped the posts of the arm and allowed himself to swing beneath it, kicking his legs up and over to hang by all fours, and began the long shimmy out toward the mid-arm. He was grateful for the high leather boots he'd taken this morning – he was well used to the flying accusations that he wore them only for show, but today they were proving practical as they kept his calves from being torn to shreds against the bolts and weather-roughened surface of the metal.

He was halfway to the elbow when a troubling groan rattled his ears – troubling not in that it sounded like the metallic complaint of a weakened rod bending under stress, but troubling in the sense that it sounded almost _human_. He ignored it – there was surely no one left alive in this wasteland – and continued his ascent. He was mere inches from the elbow joint when it repeated itself.

This time, the pilot froze. There was no doubt left in his mind that the sound was human, which left him with a more upsetting dilemma – what on earth should he _do_ about it? A long-ignored and deeply loathed sense of morality insisted that he at least _look_ for the poor bastard before deciding whether to leave them for dead, but the more practical of him side that had lived through too many wars and was too keenly aware of what the punishment for dodgers like himself generally entailed was fighting valiantly to stuff that last bit of humanity into its final resting place and dance on its grave. It wasn't as if he even _knew_ this person…

He huffed dramatically and allowed his legs to slip from their hold, hanging uselessly by his arms for a long moment before dropping to the ground and leaving the scavenger sputtering behind him.

His kindness would be his downfall. He had been assured of this over and _over_ again, but…

He scoured the ground around his feet, feeling his nose creep higher and higher against the rubber of the gas mask. The window of the cockpit was kept narrow for a reason – the sight of this much devastation was upsetting to even the most seasoned of pilots, and he was finding himself no exception, despite his years of experience. Whichever side had unleashed this terror – it was impossible to tell these days as both had decided that the other's complete annihilation was paramount – had been excruciatingly thorough. The field was scorched beyond recognition and bodies and twisted metal littered every inch of the ground – the bastards hadn't even bothered to claim their dead. His stomach twisted thinking of the poor sod trapped amongst this mess and he stumbled forward, raking his eyes across the field at top speed.

The survivor was not difficult to locate, being the only moving component of the landscape, even if it was only the shallow movements of his chest that gave him away. The man's face was swollen and bruised beyond recognition; shrapnel dug its sharp fingers alongside the bruises and down into his torso and his left arm had been completely mangled – an explosive of some sort, from the looks of it. The pilot wondered how this man was even _alive_, much less conscious and able to make noise…

He was even more shocked to find the man's right arm wrapped tightly around the wrist of the mechanical arm. _Had he…?_ No, there was no possible way that this mangled mess of a man could possibly be preventing the entire arm from moving. Not with five hundred pounds of pressure activating the lift mechanism. It was impossible-

Or maybe it wasn't. The pure, animalistic rage staring back at him through the slivers of swollen eyes sent shudders down the pilot's spine and spurred him forward at a run to crouch by the man's side, his own disgust at the rot around him quickly forgotten. He knocked the surrounding bodies and metal scraps away; the man's left leg was trapped beneath the remains of what a appeared to be a cannon, but beyond that, there appeared to be nothing preventing him from moving. He quickly set about heaving the iron and wooden scraps away, freeing the trapped leg and scuttling back up to the scowling face.

"Can you move?"

The responding growl was fierce, guttural, but ultimately non-committal, and he decided the easiest course of action was to clear the short path back to the AT-SV of refuse and drag the man back to the vehicle like a rag doll. It was a last resort, and practically ensured more dirt and filth would grind themselves into the man's wounds, but he supposed that it was unlikely that would damage him too much more beyond his current state of disrepair. He didn't really have a good idea of how he was supposed to move this behemoth otherwise…

Hauling the man into the cockpit proved to be an entirely new world of worry and backache, especially as he couldn't fully explain to himself _why _he was taking such measures to rescue a battered soldier - who was more likely to kill him on sight than reciprocate this kindness - in the first place. Still, perseverance paid in the end and within a quarter hour, he had situated the man in the back of the cramped cockpit. He could practically guarantee he would be no more comfortable here than he had been out amongst the wreckage, but, with a little luck, they could return the base in under an hour. He could only hope the poor bastard would hold out that long.

He sunk into the pilot's seat with a resigned sigh and tugged tentatively at the arm lever.

It shifted with only a slight creak.

_Fuck_.

He collapsed forward onto the dash, stripping away the gasmask and pinching the bridge of his nose. He was bringing home a monster, with no coherent explanation of _why_, even to himself.

He kicked the engine into drive, starting the legs plodding forward once again.

He had time to conjure up something.

* * *

His shoulder was on fire.

The rest of him was not in much better shape, from what he could tell with his eyes closed, but the tearing, stinging, throbbing, _burn_ of his shoulder seemed to collect every fiber of his consciousness and carefully condense them into a gut-wrenching scream that came barreling out from his lungs. His torso convulsed with the effort and he bolted up right-

Or would have, had the leather strap across his midsection not caught him and held him fast in place. He coughed, sputtered, choked as he was unable to replace his air supply against the restraints and collapsed backwards onto the…_bed_? It was soft, at any rate, and certainly better than the cold ground he last remembered.

"Don't move." A cold rag was draped across his forehead and he squinted to make out the form of whoever held it.

"What the-"

"Don't move," the voice repeated, more sternly this time, "We've had to amputate your arm. If you move, you'll open the cauterization and bleed to death."

He grimaced and growled, but ceased straining and settled back, still trying to focus on the face of the man standing over him. He was tall and thin – almost ridiculously so – his blond hair tied into knots against his scalp and beaded with mismatched glass, and his eyes an unforgettable shade of blue…

_No_…

"What's wrong?" the man demanded, bending over the bed and pulling the rag away from his face.

There was no mistake. "Fay…"

The man recoiled, the terror evident on his face even through his fuzzy vision. "How do you- _Who are_-" He stepped back from the bed, glaring down at its occupant with a mix of fury and confusion. With a deep breath, he reached forward once again and dug a bony finger into a bruised and swollen lower eyelid, dragging it down and holding it there against the strangled, pained shouts of protest. He shuddered at the red staring back at him.

"_Youou_."


	2. High Life

**A/N:** Sooo...I've decided, after careful consideration, to keep the chapters of this fic short and restricted to one time frame. The story itself bounces around a lot (because I am apparently incapable of writing anything "serious" [yes, that gets scare quotes, because it is _scary_!] without _long _inner battles over structure and presentation and how best to play with all of your heads...), so I feel the best way to keep everyone (including myself) from exploding is to present short, neat chapters. I'm _very _open to suggestions/criticisms as well; this fic scares me on sort of a visceral level because Bottan keeps producing beautiful artwork (like this: konnichipuu .deviantart .com/#/d3agv45 ) and I want to write something _worthy_, dammit!

So, having said that...this chapter ended up being mostly exposition. ^^;; Ahahaha... I'm just going to hope it doesn't bore everyone to tears...

* * *

The bar was cluttered with glasses and empty bottles, betraying both the late hour and the general attitude its tender seemed to take toward tidying. Empty containers meant full tills, and the old man obviously relished the idea of both; for the past four nights now Youou had watched the smirk grow across his face as the hours ticked away and the counters were left grungier and gluier with each measured shot.

Tonight, the dingy copper lanterns, tarnished with age and blackened by use, hanging just above the countertops swayed in time with the off-kilter rhythm of the bass guitar thwanging from the rickety stage, haphazardly constructed and tucked conspicuously back into a far corner where patrons were free to crack their ankles against its edging as they darted to and from their crowded tables. The music wasn't particularly good – not that it ever _was_, with even musicians finding themselves drafted into service, "live" performances had become the domain of tik-tok automatons, useful for banging out notes, but entirely incapable of infusing them with the soul or emotion of a devoted player – but there _was_ a certain charm to the awkwardly plucked melody, and Youou had to admit that it was a welcome change of pace from being unwittingly dragged into inane conversation with the drunkards next to him. They were out in force tonight, the grey-haired legion of gripers; sour old men longing for the "good old days" – whenever those had been – their numbers peppered through with the odd disabled youngster (whether through military service or industrial accident was impossible to tell at a glance; most able-bodied men had either found themselves remanded into boot camp or flown the cities entirely to avoid it, leaving behind this motley conglomeration of missing limbs and stark, raving lunatics). He set his glass at the edge of the counter and leaned forward onto his elbows to stare down the depth of the swirling brown liquor.

The idiot seated next to him probably wouldn't have caught his attention at all, had his hair not been _quite_ so startlingly blond, his expression _quite_ so amused (or possibly drunk, it was difficult to tell), or his appearance _quite_ so young. As it was, the eyesore mop snatched his eyes from their quarry and dragged them all the way across the inquisitively lifted eyebrow and chuckling half-smirk nestled between its fringes. Youou sneered reflexively and straightened his back. "What?" he spat, fully intending the ire rumbling through his throat would scare this would-be conversationalist away.

To his everlasting chagrin, it only provoked a quiet chuckle.

"I was just thinking – you don't look old enough to be holding that pint glass, much less to be decked out in that uniform."

Youou bristled. _What kind of an asshole_… "What's wrong with my uniform?" he snapped, smoothing the pointed lapels and plucking at a stray bit of wool peeking out from his collar.

The blond man smiled and waved this away. "Nothing, nothing. It's quite sharp," he paused to swig his ale, "That would be the off-duty version, yes?"

"Mm," Youou snatched his glass back from the bar and closed his eyes as he drank, "Leave."

"Alright, alright," the blond man mumbled apologetically as he shuffled to the edge of his stool, "No need to get nasty."

Youou nearly choked on his ale. "No, you idiot, I mean I'm _on leave_."

"Oh," the man seemed to consider this as he slid back into his seat, "You could be a bit more clear, you know? We can't all be fluent in Tall Dark and Grumpy."

"What the-" Youou kicked himself mentally. He had been so close to getting rid of this guy. Damned big mouth…

"So young and already enough time socked away to earn yourself some leave time, huh?"

"What? Where is this 'young' crap coming from?"

"ID says he's eighteen," the bartender offered with a smirk. Youou snarled at him. Damned busybody old man would have been better served wiping down the damned sticky bar or pulling him another pint. Youou opened his mouth to tell him as much, but was interrupted by a loud _tsk_-ing from the blond man.

"You're just a _baby_. I had no idea the military was desperate enough to recruit children…"

"Oh for _fu_-" Youou dug quickly into his pocket and slammed a fistful of change on the counter. He cast a final disparaging glare at the blond man and pushed his stool back from the bar. That was about enough of this bullshit.

The gentleness of the hand at his forearm surprised him more than its presence. The sardonic grin and quirked eyebrow the man was projecting at him didn't compliment it _at all_ and Youou protectively yanked his arm higher up his chest, scowling all the while.

"C'mon," the man slurred, practically laughing around his words, "Truce? I'll buy you a drink." He motioned sloppily to the bartender, who bobbed his head lazily in reply and staggered over to the severely depleted collection of clean glasses.

Youou glared suspiciously at the man for a long moment before huffing his defeat and settling back onto the stool. It wasn't as if he particularly relished the thought of heading back out into the frigid winter night and slogging back to his rooms through the soot-stained snow, even if they were only a few blocks away. Still, he wondered if this wasn't a mistake – the man had clearly already had enough to drink – and stared quizzically at the hand being offered him.

"Fay Fluorite," the blond man offered, taking it upon himself to grasp Youou's hand in his own and shake it heartily, "And you are…?"

"Youou," he answered simply, suddenly very interested in the old man's putzing about with the tap a few feet down the bar.

"_Oof_. Of course it's a killer to pronounce, too," Fay wailed miserably.

"Hah?" Youou wondered aloud, attention snapping back to the man sitting next to him. He realized it only seconds later – the slightly unbalanced, lilting accent the man spoke with, not pronounced enough to peg him immediately as a foreigner (though the blond hair and blue eyes managed _that_ with little need for further evidence), but still plainly _there_. "Foreigner, huh?" Youou said with appropriate disdain.

"Mmm," Fay nodded, "Valerian. Ended up here after a short stay in Celes, though, a few years back."

Youou cringed at the mention of Nihon's neighbors to the north. Relations with the two had gone notoriously sour during the past decade as first Valeria had fallen to internal squabbling over accession to the throne and Celes had taken full advantage of their weakened state and invaded. Celes superior, mechanized weaponry had easily broken through Valeria's last line of defense and overwhelmed what remained of the Royal Guard with alarming efficiency. Now, with the vast copper store already under Celesian control and the newly acquired ore mines in the south of Valeria, Celes had taken to constant saber rattling, anxiously awaiting any display of weakness from Nihon that it might exploit in the name of empire building. And with tensions rising in the countryside as they currently were…

"Cold up there, huh?" was all Youou managed in the end, not eager to delve too deeply into the bloody, complicated, and now apparently _personal_ situation north of the border.

Fay snorted and hiccupped. "Maybe," he grinned, "But at least there the buildings are planned closer together. _And_ with tunnels. Navigating the city streets around here in winter is like wandering the tundra with no overcoat. Even your damned gas lamps don't give off heat. "

Youou chuckled wryly at this; he'd been only too aware of the bitter cold recently with only his standard issue winter clothes to see him through. Rationing had ensured that wool – already scarce enough before the peasants' uprising – had become next to impossible to procure and the need for ever increasing issues of cheap military garb had left the manufacture of hats, gloves, and the like entirely to mass production machinery. No matter how uniform their stitches, how tightly they wound their thread, how intricate their knotted patterns became, the machine-made gear never managed to keep him as warm as their knobbly, mismatched, handmade counterparts of his youth.

"Of course," Fay continued, smiling wanly at his cup, "The snow there is _white_ as well, not this disgusting shade of gray from the soaking soot." The smile faded, "Or at least, that _was_ the case. Lord knows with the Celesians running things now, it's probably just as gray…"

Youou balked, confused. "What do you mean? Valeria has been industrialized for ages – how can you not-"

"Well, yes, but," Fay cut him off, "You keep it out in the countryside, don't you? When you've got such a constant reminder of the filth that comes with it. It's easy for you to forget here, during the summer months when everything is green and brown in the cities, that you're pumping out pounds and pounds of ash from your chimneys. It's a bit of a starker contrast when it falls on something white."

"That sounds…ridiculously impractical." Youou decided.

"Haha," Fay laughed lowly, "It was. It was always a tenuous social contract at best – that workers would move or commute to the outlying areas in exchange for modernized cities – which is _why_ I imagine it's changed under Celes."

"What a mess," Youou sighed, wrapping his fingers tightly around the glass the bartended deposited in front of him (with a _wink_, Youou noticed with more than a few degrees of anger flaring around his collar). "You should count yourself lucky you got out at all. The way Ceres treats Valeria is fucking disgusting. They have no right."

Fay regarded him with a strange expression. "No _right_? That's an odd opinion for a military man. Isn't it 'might makes right' and all that for you guys?"

Youou choked on his drink. "_The hell?_ Don't paint me with the same brush as those imbeciles. The point of a military is to protect the helpless, not attack them."

Fay chortled into his drink and hiccupped once again. "And who, exactly, are _you_ protecting, I wonder?" His eyebrows lifted, teasing. "I suppose you're too young to have a wife, or a family of your own."

Youou grit his teeth and decided that this fool was damned lucky that the silly, drunken grin plastered across his face left him all but impossible to punch. "Why should I need a family of my own to protect?" he demanded, "I love my country; my family has defended it for generations. I have my honor. Who's going to defend you this time from those same bastards that ripped apart your home if not for soldiers like me?"

"Actually," Fay paused thoughtfully, a frown turning the corners of his lips, "The last I'd heard, your forces had been deployed to put down your own citizens in the west country…"

Youou sighed exasperatedly and raked a hand through his hair. "You should understand better than anyone what it would mean if we were to show any sign of weakness in front of Celes at the moment. It would take all of a week for their forces to start chipping away at our borders."

"Still, soldiers firing on the same people they've sworn to protect…"

"You have _no idea_ what you're talking about," Youou cut him off definitively, "Sometimes you have to harm some to protect others. It was for the greater good."

"Killing for the greater good… But surely those people were only fighting to protect what's dear to _them_," Fay countered, undeterred, "How can you justify that, if 'protecting' plays such a large role in your definition of honor?"

"I-" Youou scoffed, "You have no concept of strategy. What the hell do you even care? What difference is it to a foreigner who lives and dies in Nihon?"

Fay stiffened, anger flashing across his features. "Perhaps none," he admitted, voice cold as ice, and drained the last of the ale from his glass. "But you," he paused to eye Youou meaningfully, "Are a terrific walking contradiction."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Tell me, were you drafted, or did you enlist?"

"…I enlisted."

"_Naturally_. And you have no family. Are your parents alive? Brothers and sisters?"

"My parents are…gone. I'm an only child," Youou growled, "Just what are you getting at?"

"Who are you protecting? Who were you protecting them _from_ when you enlisted? From the sounds of it, you don't have much stake in this war, either. You've gone out looking for a battle to protect some abstract concept from an imaginary enemy. It's just been fortuitous timing that Celes has provided you with a target."

"You don't know the first goddamned thing about me or what I have at stake!" Youou spluttered, now completely enraged. Who the _fuck_ was this asshole and what right did he have to be spouting off this nonsense? This idiot who had probably never _seen_ a fight in his life…

"You're right," Fay murmured quietly, staring at the bar. When he looked back to Youou a moment later, a pained smile had stretched itself across his features. "I'm sorry. I don't know what got into me," he fidgeted with the long coat hanging from the backrest of his stool, eventually loosening it enough to start tugging his arms through. "I shouldn't have…"

"Tche," Youou scoffed, feeling just the slightest pang of guilt. It was obvious this man was conflicted; he probably hadn't needed to _rage_ at him quite like that. "Don't be an idiot. Where are you going?"

Fay was too busy wrapping the extended length of a scarf around his face and neck to respond immediately. He pulled the wool away from his lips a moment later, "Home. I was expected there hours ago, but today seemed to demand a slight detour." He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to Youou's cheek. "Thank you," he whispered, "Your idealism is…heartening."

"What the hell?" Youou shouted at Fay as he wound his way precariously through the crowd to the exit. "What the hell do you mean '_idealism_?' Get back here and finish your damned drink!"

Fay only waved over his shoulder, leaving Youou to scowl silently at his back.


	3. Alive

**Update:** In her ongoing effort to make my head explode with loooove, Bottan has sketched "Devil's Nurse Tomoyo." XD She is absolutely gorgeous and her syringe is fantastically horrifying! *wibbles* I LOVE YOU, BOTTAN!

Check it out here: konnichipuu. deviantart .com/gallery/#/d3api6w

* * *

When he opened his eyes next, it was to find a long-haired girl leaning over him, blocking most of the dim light flickering about the room from his eyes, and swiping gently at some of the lesser wounds on his face and neck with a damp washcloth. He started, jerked backward, but remembered the restraints from earlier and collapsed resignedly, turning his face toward the wall.

She laughed.

He huffed and turned his face just enough to stare at her from the corner of his eye. "What?" he growled, or tried to growl – it was difficult to sound properly threatening when his vocal chords were dry and refused to produce the guttural roar his brain insisted they were capable of.

"Everyone has been saying that Fay brought home some sort of superhuman beast," the girl managed through her laughter, "You broke all of the restraints we put on you in your sleep! They're all _terrified _of you, and yet…" she broke off as the laughter turned to hysterical sobs and turned away from him to dip the cloth in a porcelain bowl resting on a bedside table.

He grumbled low in his throat (this seemed to work better than growling). _Brought home_…apparently he hadn't been taken as a prisoner of _war_, _still_… "_Well_…?" he prompted, growing tired of whatever game this was.

"You roll over and huff like a grumpy puppy!" she finally finished, leaning back over him and pulling his face to meet hers once again before dabbing at his cheek.

The cloth reeked of sterile alcohol, which was surprising enough, as most readily available alcohols had been reduced to little more than watered-down swill with rationing; the concentrated sting of the solution against his skin made him hiss and squirm. She gripped his chin tightly with her free hand and squeezed some excess liquid from the washcloth. It dribbled across his cheek and burned as it met open wounds, wrenching forth a steady stream of curses that only made her lift her eyebrows and chuckle again. "It's an antiseptic," she assured him with a steady smile, removing the washcloth and depositing it once again in the porcelain bowl, "You're so full of holes at the moment that you'd be a real mess if one of them got infected."

He didn't _care_. He'd survived plenty of infections, and plenty _more_ wounds; he'd survive this as well. What he wanted to know _now_ was where he had ended up – where that damned fool had _taken_ him – and what kind of people he suddenly found himself in the unwitting care of. He was sure he'd be lectured on just how close to death he'd managed to drag himself _this_ time later. "Where the _hell _am I?" he sputtered, "Who _are_ you?"

This wasn't a military hospital – of that much he was certain. The rich, blue curtains draping the bed gave _that_ much away almost instantly; peering beyond their lengths he could make out an ornate, cast iron bed frame, too twisted and artistically woven to belong even to a civilian hospital. The walls were paneled with intricately carved, dark wood, which sprayed the small amount of light offered by the flickering gas lantern in odd directions about its surface and generally broadcast the incredible wealth of whoever had covered an entire room with its extravagance. He eyed the girl more closely; she seemed out of place amongst all this finery, dressed in only a simple cotton dress with a drab leather corset and brightly dyed red calico overcoat, turned up at the elbows. Her dark hair was twisted and braided back from her face, but fell loosely around her shoulders and down to her waist, odd stands beaded and tied with expensive-looking bits of glass and jewels – a bizarre contrast to her humble clothing that he found he did not appreciate in the least.

"You can call me Tomoyo. And, you're safe," she assured him, eyes narrowing playfully as he began to complain, "_For now_. How do you feel?" The warmth returned to her eyes as she asked this last, and reached forward to stroke the pad of her thumb against his cheek.

"Horrible," he answered truthfully, deciding that there was little harm in letting that little bit of honesty slip though. His entire body felt like it was on fire – the familiar sting of the antiseptic, he realized with a bit of embarrassment – and his shoulder…well, that much he knew already. He pinched his eyes closed. "What the hell happened to me? Where the hell did that guy go? Where is-" he lost his train of thought along with his stream of air as dry, rollicking coughs broke free from his chest and sent his mind reeling once again, this time in a desperate fight for oxygen.

"Drink this," she held a mug to his lips, tilting it back slightly as she encouraged him. "It's just water," she chided when he refused and the liquid splashed against his tightly pressed mouth, "I promise."

He quirked an eyebrow suspiciously, but allowed a small amount of the mug's contents to slip past his lips. He was immediately grateful – through the filter of pain and general frustration with his incapacitation (and probable incarceration) in this place he hadn't realized just _how_ parched he had become. After several moments passed with no ill effects, he accepted more of the water.

"Tomoyo, huh?" he gulped, resting his head back into the pillow.

"Yes," she smiled again. It was infuriatingly disarming, and he wrenched his head to the side, lest he accidentally lower his guard any further. "And what can we call you?"

He hissed the last of his air reserves through his teeth, silently castigating himself for not having thought this far ahead. Like _hell_ he was about to give her his real name, but then… "Kurogane," he growled finally. It wasn't the best cover he'd ever concocted – it was only his father's name and easily recognizable to the right people – but it would have to do for the moment. He was suddenly exhausted just by the effort of remaining awake.

"Kurogane," she repeated, as if trying out the word for the first time. "Like the general," she added after a moment had passed.

"I-" _Shit_. "Yeah…"

"It's a lovely name," she assured him, "Kurogane. To answer your questions…" she paused and scanned the room with a frown, "You are in our home – the exact location of which you may come to know in time, _if_ you're deemed trustworthy. Fay is working, and as for what happened to you…well, we had hoped _you_ would be able to tell us. When Fay found you, you were mangled and half-buried beneath a canon – barely conscious – yet somehow you managed to hold down the arm of his vehicle." Her eyes widened inquisitively as she revealed this, clearly hoping he would provide some sort of answer.

In truth, he remembered nothing beyond deafening explosions and screams of terror. He'd been stationed just outside of Takayama – a backwater village so tiny that none of his men had expected to see much action – but when he'd awoken that morning, the raid sirens had already been blaring. There had been precious little time to scrape together the few canons and Gatling guns they had at their disposal. Hauling the mini-tanks out of their tightly locked storage had been completely out of the question given the immediacy of the threat. _Fuck_. The best weapons they had they'd been caught so far off their guard that they hadn't even been able to employ them…

"Don't strain yourself," Tomoyo insisted, smoothing the blankets back over him and tucking them around his sides, "It should come back in time." She bit her lip and averted her eyes guiltily, "We've been keeping you under some heavy sedatives, to be sure you didn't reopen your wounds. I'm sure they're not helping your memory."

Kurogane scoffed. _Of course they had._ It only made sense if they viewed him as some sort of inhuman brute – which she had plainly stated they _did_ – prisoner or no.

"Speaking of which," Tomoyo frowned, producing a large copper syringe filled with a startlingly _green_ solution from the side table where it had been carefully hidden behind the bowl. "I'd like you to go back to sleep for awhile. Just for the night," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"I suppose you're not going to give me a choice," Kurogane growled, knowing full well he was defeated.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she slipped the needle into the flesh of his remaining arm and depressed the plunger fully.

He winced as the burning liquid seeped into his muscle and quickly worked its way into his veins, but was quickly overcome by sleep, even as he attempted to curse this devil's nursemaid.

* * *

He was dying. Or possibly he was already dead, done in by any number of the horrible, screeching explosions dancing around him in a twisted ballet. The latter seemed the more likely option, what with the vultures pecking away at the inside of his thigh. If he were merely _dying_, he might be able to swat them away and spare himself the terrific pain of having his flesh torn away, bit by bit, by the starving carrion birds. Ahead of him, he could make out a bright white light that undulated and beckoned him forward. Yes, this was surely death.

Of course, if he _was_ dead, he shouldn't be feeling any pain – especially not from these vultures and their blatantly corporeal beaks. Or so he had been lead to beli-

"_What the fuck are you doing to me?"_

The woman straddling his leg at the foot of the bed looked up in surprise, long, dark hair fluttering forward to frame her face. Bright morning light spilled in through the window, illuminating the room beyond any measure he'd yet seen, and casting an oddly ethereal glow over the woman…which only ensured that Kurogane lost even less time in branding her a witch than he otherwise would have. The magnifying goggles over her eyes, framed by thick metal with an obnoxious number of twists and dials splaying out from their sides, lent her an insidiously comic look which was only further exacerbated by the toothy grin she wore beneath them.

"Don't worry!" she exclaimed proudly, straightening her back and waving a long pair of jointed silver tweezers in front of his face, "I'm a doctor!"

Somehow this little admission seemed to make the entire situation that much worse, and he struggled to sit up, cross his legs, _anything_ to make himself less vulnerable to this apparently insane woman with sharp objects pointed at his groin, only to find neither his arm nor his legs would cooperate. It took several moments of twisting and pulling to realize that his limbs had been securely fastened to the iron bed frame by thick leather belts.

"You'll want to stop struggling," she continued, sliding back to her original position and providing him with more of a view of her ample cleavage than he cared to take in under these circumstances, "Or this will just hurt more." With a flourish, she snapped the tweezers forward, clamped the handles together on an unseen target, and ripped them backward.

"_FUCK!"_

She held the tweezers over the edge of the bed and loosened her grip on the handles, sending a sharp metallic _ping_ reverberating through the room as whatever had been clasped in their teeth clattered into a container, and stared meaningfully at him. "You've got quite a mouth on you. I'd say you swear like a sailor, but you're clearly an infantryman, Lieutenant Youou Suwa of the 109th Regiment."

His blood ran cold at the mention of his full name and rank. Even Fay – the only person here who ostensibly _knew_ him – couldn't have known his rank and he wasn't certain he'd ever mentioned his family name, at that. He gaped, his jaw flapping uselessly as his brain sought the words to push past his lips. "How do you-"

"Of course," she laughed, "You wanted to be called _Kurogane_. How silly of me." She positioned the tweezers back at his inner thigh before continuing, "_Kurogane_, you have five staples remaining in your leg here that need to be removed. Now, I grant you they're in a bit of a delicate area," she waved the tweezers haphazardly toward his crotch – and oh dear _God_, he was lying here naked and bound to the bed with this woman wielding her instruments of torture where even the most seasoned of interrogators didn't dare to tread – "But, I _should_ mention that you have a massive artery and vein sitting right about here-" she paused to run the cold metal across his skin, evidently pleased at the bristling this provoked, "And it would be a _tragedy_ if one of these staples should slip and nick either one. Do I make myself clear?"

Kurogane nodded quickly and bit down on his lip as he felt the prongs clamp down and tug gently at his skin.

"Good." And without further warning, she wrenched another bit of metal free from his flesh and deposited it with its brethren.

It was all he could do to count the cracks in the ceiling through the hot mess of water welling up in his eyes as she pulled the remaining staples free. He wanted the devil nurse back, with her horrible syringe and disturbingly sweet smile and bowl of stinging antiseptic-

_How long had he been out this time_? He wiggled his cheeks and blinked his eyes; his face felt surprisingly mobile – not at all like the swollen, raw mess it had been, last he remembered…

"Two weeks," the answer came from the foot of the bed, "Altogether, that is. Usually you only sleep for a day or two at a time before waking and causing all sorts of grief for poor Tomoyo."

Kurogane shuddered. How had she…?

"You ask the same thing every time you wake up," she continued before he could ask, "And it _always_ comes right after that little face dance." She removed the goggles from her face, retrieved the metal bowl holding the removed staples from the floor, and took several deliberate steps toward the head of the bed. "You may call me Yuuko," she said sweetly as she deposited the bowl and goggles on the bedside table.

"_Witch_," Kurogane growled as she set the large tweezers into a large vase filled with blue liquid and quickly dipped her hands into a steaming basin.

"_Yuuko._ Don't move," she directed – Kurogane quickly decided that this would not be a problem, considering the belts and the sharp, pointy tools still within her reach – and stepped around the bed toward the door. "Watanuki!" she called through the open frame, "Send Mokona in here with the antiseptic rinse!"

There was a loud clatter from the hallway seconds later followed by a long string of cursing and less well articulated shouting. Yuuko sighed and chuckled in a manner that, from anyone else, might have conveyed embarrassment. "We've been doing our best to keep your room clean," she explained, "Since you had _so_ many open wounds and there is no limit to the clutter and dirt that tend to fly around this place. The only people allowed in or out have been Tomoyo and myself."

This rang false and Kurogane's impetuous nature claimed the better of him before his brain caught up. "What about _him_?" he demanded.

"Fay?" she frowned, "He hasn't actually taken much of an interest in you since he hauled you back." She shook her head, "Scavenging strange people from death's doorway seems to be becoming a hobby of his…_ah_!" She clasped her hands together as small pile of scrap, complete with long, rabbit-like ears and a red glass knob set between them _stamp-plonked_ its way through the doorway. "Why _hello_ there, my little darling!" She quickly scooped the metallic creature into an embrace and waltzed gracefully back to the bedside.

Kurogane _stared_. "What in the name of-"

"It's Mokona!" she exclaimed, a terrifically huge smile stretching across her face, and held the contraption out for closer inspection.

Kurogane felt his eyebrows make a break for his hairline, even as the rest of his face fell in defeat. "What the hell is a Mokona?"

Yuuko looked positively _scandalized_ by this question and pulled the "Mokona" back toward her chest with a suspicious glare. "Mokona is Mokona! She's only the most useful invention to come out of our workshops, _ever_!" she exclaimed, stroking its metallic ears, "Aren't you, darling?"

Kurogane could have sworn he saw the little creeper nod, but quickly wrote this off as some sort of pain-killer induced delusion. It was just an automaton – probably a wind-up, at that. Its ears certainly looked mobile enough… "It's a tik-tok," he said flatly.

Yuuko _hmph_ed indignantly. "She most certainly is not a tik-tok! She's a fully functioning, compact mobile storage unit and she runs on _steam_!"

"That thing can't run on steam!" Kurogane sputtered, "It's not even big enough to house a combustion chamber." Of all the _stupid_…

"Ohoho! Really?" she turned the contraption around in her arms just enough to reveal a small hole in its back through which the tiniest wisps of steam escaped. "She's light enough to only need a few pounds of pressure to move. Just be careful not to put your hand near the exhaust port – it'll still scald you."

"I couldn't give less of a fu-"

"There's that temper again," she chided, pressing in the large red knob on the Mokona's forehead. A split-second later, its mouth opened wide and spat out a roll of bandages and a suspiciously large bottle.

"_What the_-?"

"See," Yuuko grinned, "_Useful_!" She set the Mokona down on the floor and moved back around to the foot of the bed, where she paused. "I'm going to release your foot," she said seriously, "And in return, I'm going to expect you not to kick me or otherwise try to move. Understood?"

He huffed but nodded his assent and was relieved to feel the belt loosened from his ankle. She splashed some of the contents of the bottle over her hands before gripping his lower leg and bending his knee up into a sharp angle. "This just needs to be bandaged," she informed him, "And then I'll be through with you. For now."

"For now."

"Yes," she positioned the bottle spout just above his thigh where she had, only moments ago, plucked the staples from. "I should warn you," she continued, "This is going to sting."

Kurogane grit his teeth and hissed his displeasure as the warm liquid splashed against his skin. It was nothing, really – not compared to the blatant ripping of his flesh earlier – just an annoying burn that fizzled out as it crept into the punctures and deadened the nerves there. Yuuko clucked her tongue approvingly as he held his leg firmly in position and stooped to pick up the roll of bandages from the mattress.

"I imagine you'll want to be on your feet as soon as possible," she said conversationally. Kurogane nodded. "And that you'll want to be heading back to your unit." He nodded again; she shook her head. "That, I'm afraid, is impossible. We can't have the military knowing our location, you see." She winked, "Top secret."

Kurogane's head sank back into the pillow as an exasperated sigh broke though his lips. "What the hell _is _this place?" he wondered aloud, fully not expecting a reasonable answer.

"A den thieves," she chuckled ominously, winding the bandage around his thigh, "Draft-dodgers, scavengers – standard, run-of-the-mill cowards and refuse." She grinned up at him as she tucked the end of the roll into the folds. "That aside, you owe us."

"_Owe _you?"

"Yes," she collected the empty metal bandage roll and bottle from the bed, "We did save your life, after all. I would say that means you owe us a pretty large debt."

"_Debt_?" Kurogane roared, "Just how much did you have in mind?" _Fantastic_. Now it was to be extortion as well as humiliation…

"Oh, about three years…"

"_What_?"

"Of course, it's really Fay that you owe," she continued, not paying him the least of mind, "He did drag your bloodied half-corpse all the way back there from Takayama." She paused, screwing her face up in thought as she scrutinized him, "But, with your shoulder in the state that it is, I don't think you'll be fit for shop work for awhile. No, for now I think it's best if we put you to work with Tomoyo, in the house. She could use a hand, and she did so _much _to care for you as well."

"Yeah, she was great at knocking me out," Kurogane scoffed, "Look, I don't have _time_-"

"I think you'll find that you have all the time in the world," she said, amused, as she unlatched his other ankle from the bed frame, "Considering you're officially a dead man in the eyes of the state. Even if you did leave here, where would you go? How would you explain how you lived while the rest of your unit died?" She lifted her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

There was none forthcoming. Kurogane only tugged at his tethered wrist in frustration and growled.

"Just hold on," she soothed, moving quickly to unstrap the belt. "There. Now you can get some rest before going to work tomorrow." She pulled the sheets and blankets up around him and gently tucked them around him. "Warm enough?"

"Yeah-"

"Good! Then I'll leave Mokona here to keep you company." She picked up the automaton in question and twisted one of the ears forward, opening the mouth once again. "Drink up, little one," she murmured, dumping the remainder of the bottle's contents down its throat. It released a loud, mechanical belch before the mouth slammed closed. Yuuko set the Mokona down on the bedside table and turned back to Kurogane, who was staring at her with furrowed brows. "What?"

"It's _thirsty_?"

"Don't be silly," she socked him playfully on the shoulder, making him wince and shirk further away, "She runs on alcohol. How else could she function with such a small engine? Now-" she held up a hand to silence the rumbling complaints issuing from her patient, "Get some rest. And don't even _think_ about trying to sneak out of here." She looked thoughtfully at the Mokona for a moment, then turned the knob on its forehead a quarter turn and waved her hand quickly in front of it.

A small, but steady, stream of flame burst from its mouth.

Yuuko grinned and clasped her hands together. "_Useful_!" With a final wave to Kurogane, she waltzed back toward the door, pausing only to wish him a good afternoon before closing it behind her and slipping a number of bolts into place from the opposite side.

Kurogane stared, wide-eyed, at the ceiling and wondered what the _hell_ he'd gotten himself into.

* * *

**End Notes:** I _love _Yuuko... XD


	4. Musique

**A/N:** A big, blusteringly huge THANK YOU to my lovely 108 ladies for helping me whip this chapter into shape and apologies to Bottan for having to beta her own gift... (lol, whoops) I love you all, you know that, right? :-*

**Edit:** There was some confusion over the timeline...my apologies - I didn't realize how difficult a time-skippy story like this can be when it's put out in serial format :( This chapter takes place the day after chapter two, ~10 years in the past.

* * *

Youou glanced between the bins of produce and the rounds of shells lining the shelves just above them and felt a sneer pulling at his face. It was ridiculous to be selling live ammunition in the same store as cabbages, let alone stocking them within meters of each other. He watched a small child, almost comically bound and swaddled in its winter clothing, bouncing up and down to reach the shelves from the corner of his eye and was thankful that the clerks had at least enough wits about them to keep the weapons out of the reach of minors.

Everywhere was like this, now. Shops that had once specialized in green groceries, clothing, even weaponry had closed their doors, unable to pay their rent, and had slowly been replaced by the few businesses cunning enough to have made diversification a priority. The military had taken full advantage of this, and had taken to running the majority of their supplies and uniforms through the back rooms of these megaliths. The quaint brick shops lining the streets were either boarded up or home to messes of mismatched merchandise like this, their puffing, soot-caked chimneys and well lit windows a stark contrast to the cold desolation of their boarded up neighbors. The remainder of specialty merchants had largely taken to the streets, braving the freezing cold with their cluttered carts for the privilege of scraping enough cash together to pay the landlord.

It was a far cry from what he remembered as a child, when his mother had dragged him the twenty-some miles from their backwater home every few months to pick up supplies and meet with old friends. Back then, he'd been fascinated by the steam locomotives and notion that water could be used to move such massive cars down the track. He'd been awed by the bustling city as well – it was a far cry from the quiet farming village that surrounded their home, and it had been all too easy for him to run off and get lost amongst its noisy streets when his mother turned her back. Needless to say, he'd been shocked to find his childhood stomping ground reduced to sloppily boarded windows and a sea of merchant carts when he'd passed through this same town only a week earlier to purchase a memorial for his parents.

After several moments spent scouring the shelves and grumbling to himself about what a mess it all was, Youou managed to find the sword polish he had come here looking for. It was, for all intents and purposes, a vanity purchase; there were precious few opportunities to actually wield a sword in battle, but like _hell_ he was about to let his father's – now his – Ginryuu fall into disrepair. He wound his way through the crowd of people gawking at various trinkets and foodstuffs toward the clerks' counter, where he was greeted by a familiar face and mop of blond hair pulled into a messy binding.

"It's you." Youou was not amused. He glanced between the jar of sword polish in his hand and the man standing between himself and the counter and cursed silently. This was his last day in the city before being shipped off to god-knows-where again and he really would have preferred to spend it in quiet solitude, far removed from any nosy idiots with hair-trigger tempers…

He wasn't entirely sure what reaction he'd been expecting, but the full-faced cringe and guilty stare he received in turn had not topped the list. Youou frowned; he'd have been more satisfied with a punch to the face. What was this fool's problem, anyway? He'd had no problem laying into him the previous night…

"Sorry," Fay mumbled to the clerk, ignoring his large, wrapped package on the counter and swiftly sidestepping the line to dart for the entrance.

"Sir! Your fa…" the clerk trailed off as the door slammed shut behind him. She rolled her eyes and swept the package toward the front of the counter as Youou stepped up to fill the empty space. "Sir," she pleaded, nodding toward the package, "Would you?"

He could feel his lip pulling into a sneer, feel the irritation rising in his chest, the argument forming on his tongue that it _really_ wasn't his problem and he had no time to deal with dumbasses who couldn't even manage to take their purchases home with them. "Yeah, fine," he relented, surprised by his own words. He flipped the clerk a coin that would more than cover the cost of the polish and headed after the idiot before she could thank him.

He found him not far from the shop, doubled over a wrought iron fence, purging the alcohol-soaked remnants of the night before. Youou scoffed and _whanged_ an open hand against his back, which only made the vile wretching project with more force. Fay scrubbed a gloved across his mouth and squinted up at his assailant.

"Oh, Yuho," he smiled wanly, "It's _you_."

Youou scowled and smacked the package into Fay's chest. "It's _Youou_," he snarled as Fay fumbled to catch the slipping package, "And what the hell was _that_ little disappearing act?"

Fay glanced at the pool of projectile he'd just deposited on the opposite side of the fence, then cocked an eyebrow back at Youou. "I wasn't feeling very well," he laughed and scratched miserably at his head, "I think I must have drank too much last night…"

"_That's_ what I was talking about. Who the hell picks a fight like that one moment and turns tail to flee in the next?"

Fay chuckled at this, embarrassed. "I…ah…"

"Tche," Youou scoffed, "You're a coward _and_ a fool." He turned to stare down the street, "I don't have time for this. See you around." He wasn't sure why he'd added that last; after tomorrow morning, he doubted he'd ever set foot in this town again.

* * *

"Fancy meeting you in a place like this."

Youou scowled up at the man leaning over his plate. "What do you want?" he growled, leaning back in the seat. Hadn't he _just_ left this fool? How had he even managed to find him again in _this_ dingy little diner out of all the dingy little buildings lining the street?

He bristled. In truth, this diner wasn't nearly as drab or dingy as he had first decided. The tableware was fine china (cracked and chipped with age in some places, but still a noticeably higher quality than would have been expected from a hole-in-the-wall café), and the walls had been plastered with thick papers inscribed with expansive, whirling patterns that he'd been too busy staring down the peeling corners of to notice how _expensive_ they were – or, would have been, at the time they'd been put up. His eyes darted quickly around the room; dark wood tables with intricately carved legs seated patrons, high quality oil paintings and pastels decorated the walls, and a grand piano stood just off to the right of the entrance. He'd been too busy trying to stifle his rumbling gut that he hadn't noticed he'd stumbled into what had probably once been a premier establishment.

Not that it especially mattered. Now, the owners were apparently just scraping by, like all the rest of their competitors on the street, and barely making ends meet, from the look of it; the other customers lining the booths were dressed in the drab garb of everyday workers – nothing at all like the crisp green and gold piping of his own uniform. All that really mattered was that it had stood out enough to attract _this_ guy, and now Youou was once again trapped in his company.

"I just wanted to say thank you," Fay smiled, ignoring the growing look of consternation on Youou's face, "For bringing me my package, earlier."

Youou stiffened and cocked a suspicious eyebrow. "That all?"

"Well, yes…"

"Fine," he picked at a pepper on his plate, "You're…_welcome_. Now-"

"Fay!"

The man in question stumbled backward, bumping into the table and rattling Youou's dishes, as he was effectively blindsided and tackled by a blond woman wearing the wait staffs' brown and white ruffled uniform.

"We've missed you!" she chattered, brushing off his coat where her apron had deposited all manner of crumbs and adjusting the collar of his coat. "What brings you back today?"

"I," Fay paused, a chuckle catching in his throat, "Well, actually, I saw _him_ through the window and realized I hadn't thanked him properly for something. And then I thought '_a cup of Miyuki's coffee would be _fantastic,' and here I am!"

She giggled as he kissed her on the cheek and pulled back with a knowing look. "And Miyuki's world famous, freshly baked, one-of-a-kind herb bread?"

"Ah," Fay looked away quickly, fingers dipping into the pockets of his well-worn blue coat, "Just coffee for today."

"Oh." Her face fell momentarily before a playful grin once again overtook it. "Well, if you would be so kind as to entertain us," she said, "I would happily comp your meal – and your friend's. Anything you'd like on the menu. What do you say?"

Youou pushed his chair away from the table and lifted a hand to protest, but was quickly overruled with a sideways glance from Fay and a glare from the waitress. "That sounds lovely," Fay accepted, and pulled the chair opposite Youou out from its resting place beneath the table, "Doesn't it?"

"Uh-"

"Fantastic!" Miyuki smiled, rearranging several of the display dishes on the table as Fay took his seat, "Eggs, as usual?"

"Ooof," Fay made a face reminiscent of the position Youou had found him in earlier and clutched at his belly, "Actually, the ol' gut's not doing so well at the moment. Let's go with something deep-fried and swimming in gravy."

Miyuki snorted and bonked him on the head with a menu. "Alright, then. I'll be back in a few minutes with your coffee."

Youou stared at her back as she departed, then back at Fay. "What did she mean '_entertain_?'" he growled, still not entirely convinced he ought to accept this generosity.

"Hmm?" Fay murmured as he peeled his gloves off and set them on the table. "Oh. Miyuki. I used to work here," he gestured toward the piano at the front of the room, "Every night for the last five years."

"Tche," Youou scoffed, "She's pretty friendly for a _former_ employer."

"Well," Fay smiled lopsidedly, "They could hardly afford to keep me on. I suppose it doesn't look like much now, but back when Miyuki's father ran this place, it was a real posh establishment – string ensembles and singers in every night, the biggest steaks in town…" he trailed off as his eyes glazed over, "But then he – and everyone else – took off to join the war effort. Now Miyuki and her sisters scramble just to keep the doors open. They kept me on for a while, but…" he finished with a shrug.

"You came back here looking for work," Youou said, finally understanding, "There was no way you saw me through that window." He might have been unable to pick up on well-worn extravagances, but he certainly wasn't an idiot when came to tactical surveillance.

Fay exhaled what might have been the beginning of a chuckle, but stopped and held his hands up instead. "You caught me," he admitted, "Still, a free meal is better than nothing and I'd appreciate it if you weren't ungrateful to them."

"I-" Youou cut himself off before he yelled and lowered his voice to a hissed whisper. "Is it really so hard to find a damned job?"

Fay stared at him for a moment, an amused smile pulling at his lips. "How long has it _been_ since you were amongst civilians? Besides, with all the new tik-tok players available for next to nothing, what the hell is a musician going to do? Wait tables? Tend bar? Those jobs have all been filled by their owners."

Youou rolled his eyes and sipped his tea as the waitress brought a second for Fay, setting it noisily down on his saucer. A second later, she produced a large platter of fried fish, smothered in some kind of sauce that Youou didn't recognize, and set it in front of him with a wink before disappearing back to the kitchen. "If it's really that bad," he continued as she left, "Why don't you just enlist? You're bound to get drafted, anyway, and the pay is higher if you sign yourself up."

"You've really got a one-track mind, don't you?" Fay mused, teasing some of the breading away from his fish and poking at the white innards. "It's verging on ridiculous. Besides, who said I haven't been drafted already?" he popped a bit of the breading into his mouth and smiled – evidently it was better than he had been expecting. "Oh, calm down," he soothed, catching Youou's angry glare from beneath his lashes, "This city is hardly a place to hide, is it? I'd be arrested in a day."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because I'm not particularly inclined toward blowing people up," Fay quipped, stabbing at his fish, "You said it yourself: what could a foreigner possibly care who lives and dies in Nihon?"

Youou exhaled gruffly, not particularly wanting to dredge up this conversation again and kicking himself for even starting down this road. "You're right," he spat, "And considering no one else is depending on the money you bring home to survive, you can just continue slumming it in our peaceful cities while everyone else fights and dies for you."

Fay froze, food balanced precariously at his lips and eyes wide. "You have quite a way of striking to the heart of matters, Yuoh."

"_Youou_."

"It's very difficult to pronounce," Fay laughed, finally popping the bit of fish into his mouth. "At any rate," he continued, pushing his plate away and getting to his feet, "I ought to get to work to pay for this meal. Please tip them well before you leave."

"You didn't even fini-"

"It'll get eaten," Fay assured him and turned to weave his way through the mess of crowded tables.

He seated himself at the piano, facing largely away from the depth of the café, and lifted the heavy case shielding the keys almost reverently. He looked far more at ease staring down the row of black and white than he had at any other point during the day. Fay tapped the pedals hesitantly with his toe, fingers sliding slowly across the surface of the keys – spreading and reaching just _so_ – until his shoulders dipped forward at last and the first notes sang from the strings. It was a lilting, flitting, fairy melody that refused to sustain overly light or dark tones as it struck its melancholy chords. Gradually the ungainly waltz swept to full tempo – a complicated, pulsating stream of flats and sharps, building and breaking over the soundboard.

Youou focused his beef and peppers still covering his plate with a small scowl; Fay was as whimsical a fool as he'd pegged him for. The song was clearly composed to evoke, all warm masses of tumbling triplets, skittering over darker rumblings and practically pitching over themselves to wrench at his heartstrings, and that – _that_ – he found incredibly irritating. Musicians were not what the world needed at the moment, he reminded himself firmly and slammed the empty cup back against its saucer. Talent and dedication to their craft aside, they were a luxury better saved for a world at peace with itself, whenever that might be.

Try though he might, however, he could not resist the allure of the music, and his eyes kept going back to the figure seated at the piano. Fay was lost in it; his head weaved back and forth with each crescendo, shoulders heaving and fingers flying toward their targets, completely unaware of anything beyond the reach of his own hands. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen a live performance and certainly, through all of the bickering and scoffing that had dominated their short acquaintance, he had not even entertained the possibility that Fay was an actual artist. He hadn't imagined the dedication, the hours of toil and practice that had clearly been invested by a man who was able to coax such raw emotion out of a simple set of strings and hammers and, for a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to himself what a goddamned shame it was for a talent like this to be squandered during wartime.

Giving up his indifferent facade, he exhaled and relaxed against his chair. It would be a sin not to enjoy playing this fine.

"More coffee, sir?" a quiet voice chirped from his side. It was the younger waitress again, her hands shaking as she hefted the metal pot toward the table.

"_Hah_? Oh," he caught himself, "Yeah, sure." He ignored her as she struggled to fill his cup, spellbound by the unexpected beauty of the music. As the piece wound down Youou could only stare, his coffee forgotten and cooling in his hand. He hardly noticed the faint buzz filling his ears as the other patrons murmured and applauded their appreciation.

Fay caught his eye as he tapped out the final lingering, off-kilter chord. He looked genuinely surprised, as if he had fully expected Youou to choke down the rest of his meal and storm from the café while his back had been turned. Youou favored him with a sneer for the insult, which quickly blossomed into a deep flush as the fool clasped his hands behind his back to stretch and _smiled_ at him.

_The hell...?_

Looking straight at him, Fai began another song, this one an ominous, ticking beat underlying dark chords. The beat rose an octave to sing over the chords and, rather than paying any particular mind to the melody itself, found himself engrossed in the shifting of the player over the keyboard, eyes closed as his fingers raced across their surface, his shoulders undulating in time and pulling at the fabric of his vest and knees twitching with each exaggerated stomp of the pedals. The carefully timed keystrokes faded into long strings of echoing arpeggios, forcing his fingers to dance across them at a rate of speed Youou had not imagined him capable of. Fay was off the bench, his hips rocking against the key row in a manner that would probably have been considered obscene had his face not screamed of angelic serenity. Slowly, the newly colored tones wound back down into their original ominousness and so too the player settled back into his seat, deliberately pounding out the final chords of the piece.

Youou took his cup again as Fay nodded his appreciation to the diners and stepped away from the piano. He quickly sipped down its contents, managing to devour half of them before the other man had waltzed his way back to the table. "Still here?" Fay asked, genuine curiosity peeking through his otherwise flat tone.

Youou raised an eyebrow. "Coffee."

"It is quite good, isn't it," Fay smiled, settling back down at the table. His smiled quickly faded, "Except…" he reached forward to pluck a coffee-soaked glove from next to Youou's saucer, "I see Chii still hasn't learned to pay attention while she's working…" He held the dripping glove at face level, "I think it might be ruined."

Youou quickly snatched the glove back and squeezed it out over the saucer. He'd been so engrossed in the music, he hadn't even noticed the spill soaking into his gloves. "It's fine," he grumbled, "It'll dry."

"Oh, I'm sure it will, too," Fay agreed, but nodded toward the door, "But in the meanwhile it's freezing and you have no gloves. Let me go see if they can dry these in back-"

"Just-" Youou growls as Fay moved to stand back up, "Sit _down_. Don't bother. I'm not staying far from here." He scoured the café for a clock and cringed as he saw the time ticking away into the late evening. "I should get going, anyway," he grumbled, mostly to himself, as he stood to pull his overcoat on, "Shipping out in the morning."

"Oh," Fay paused, tucking a piece of hair back behind his ear, "Well, I suppose then…"

"Yeah," Youou quickly agreed, depositing several coins on the table, "It's been…"

"It's been nice," Fay finished for him.

Youou snorted, well and truly amused that this fool found their contentious at worse and idiotic at best conversation 'nice,' and slightly annoyed to realize that he had as well. "Yeah," he grunted and turned toward the door, offering only a quick flick of his wrist over his shoulder as a goodbye.

The air outside was cold and biting and he quickly jammed his hands into his pockets to find some warmth. At some point, the near-constant cloud cover of the past several days had broken to allow a starry sky to light the crowded street along with the gas lamps and he stared up at it as he walked; it was a rare enough sight these days, with the increasingly industrial cities pumping out enough smoke to block their view for miles. It was only on cold winter nights like these, when the air was thick enough to force the smog out and away, that one truly had an opportunity to appreciate them.

The street around him was still bustling with end-of-day business; merchants, desperate to sell off the last of their wares, shouted out discounts and bargains and specials of all kinds, which he dutifully ignored as he plodded along. At least until he found himself standing in front of a liquor cart, pondering which of the homebrews would make the best addition to his evening.

"I prefer the darker, wheat-distilled ones myself."

Youou turned to stare at the person next to him. "Are you following me, now?" he snapped.

"Yes," Fay smiled, dangling a soaked pair of gloves between them, "You forgot these."

Youou rolled his eyes and snatched the gloves back. "Do you want something?"

"Just to give you your gloves," Fay assured him, leaning forward to inspect the bottles shimmering on the shelves, "And a bottle of alcohol, of course."

"You were _just_ sick this morning."

Fay waved this away. "Hair of the dog…" He picked a bottle of the lowest shelf and stared at its label for a moment. "Looks like this will have to do…"

Youou stood back from the cart as Fay argued with the merchant, who clearly wanted to sell a more expensive bottle than he had selected and offered up all manner of excuses why this particular bottle wasn't worth the few shillings he was willing to pay for it. His fingers squished around the soaked gloves in his pocket, now chilled in the night air and becoming a nuisance. He looked around for a trash bin.

"Well that settles that," Fay's voice came momentarily from his side. "I have purchased the worst liquor on the face of the earth. Or at least, so says the guy who made it…"

Youou cocked a suspicious eyebrow at him before turning to continue on his way. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd been waiting at the cart in the first place. Fay, irritatingly, kept pace beside him. "You'd think he'd have more confidence in something he was selling…" he babbled, tugging at the half-frozen cork as he walked, "Would you like a drink?"

Youou turned his head just enough to see the bottle extended toward him and frowned. "Not if it's the worst liquor in the world."

"I doubt it's _that_ bad," Fay frowned, "I'd offer to buy you a drink at a pub, but that was the last of my money…"

"I don't need you to buy-" he stopped, staring at the tall, brick building beside him, "This is me. Look, it's been-"

"Nice, right?" Fay smiled, and Youou kicked himself inwardly. Damned if the bastard didn't have the same look of passion about him that he'd worn crouched over the piano.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You can-" he choked, stumbling to find his tongue, "You can come up, if you want."

Fay's eyes widened slightly. "Um, sure…" he accepted, taking a tentative step forward.

"For a _drink_," Youou corrected, suddenly aware of what he'd just said, "And-"

"Of course, of course," Fay teased as he brushed past him. _Brushed _deliberately_ past him_, Youou noted, _the bastard_. He fumbled with his keys in the entryway door, cursing his cold fingers and their inability to properly crank the key the extra bit it required in the rusty lock. Finally, he managed to slide the bolt and pushed the door open, holding it open for the fool and traipsing in after him, wondering all the while what the _fuck_ he had just invited and why he wasn't more upset about it.


	5. Robot Rock

This week has been like a nightmare with the news out Japan going from bad to worse to terrifying. Please, if you're able, donate to the rescue and clean-up efforts going on in there. There are several fandom efforts going on to encourage donations through bidding (by donation to your charity of choice) on fic requests as well - I am participating in HelpJapan (http:/ community. livejournal .com/ help_japan/ 2978 .html?thread=371362#t371362), as are many more very talented writers. Please lend a hand!

Other notes: back to the future again...

* * *

Fay squinted, a pair of forceps positioned carefully beneath the concentrated lantern light in one hand, and leaned in closer over his workbench. He teetered on the tips of his toes and nearly cursed, but caught himself; one small gust of breath was all it would take to scatter his last three hours worth of work into an unrecognizable mess of wheels and brackets. His heels connected once again with ground as a frown pulled at his lips; the trouble with all of Yuuko's flights of fancy wasn't so much their flightiness _or_ their fanciness – it was always, _always_ their damned miniscule size. He dropped the forceps on the bench and cranked the knob at the side of his goggles back and forth, adjusting the length of the slender scope over his right eye as he struggled to focus the lens. He braced his left arm against the workbench and leaned forward once again, his right hand turning, turning, turning a the knob, sliding the scope ever downward, until the fuzzy mess of metal resolved into a clear cut relief of sharp edges and interlocking teeth.

Holding back his breath, he groped blindly along the bench for his abandoned forceps, eyes never straying from their target, and, finding them, brought the final gear to drop amongst its brethren with a flourish. A few flicks of his wrist later and he had nudged the cogs into place and snatched a correspondingly tiny nut from a pile near his wrist to twist over the final bolt and lock the entire mechanism into place. He grinned. It was perfect. Now for a test drive…

"Syaoran," he called across the workshop, whipping his head up a bit too quickly and staggering backward as the magnifying goggles sent his vision into a tailspin. He peeled them away from his face, the thick leather straps catching on his ears and the beads knotted into his hair and yanking his head at odd angles before he was freed. The goggles clattered noisily across the workbench as Fay dropped them in favor of rubbing his eyes, pinching away the last of the double vision, and shaking the dizzy spell from his head. He caught himself against the edge of the bench moments later and chuckled, slightly embarrassed. Without good reason, it turned out, as the shop boy was nowhere to be seen. There was a tinkering noise from across the way and the muted sputtering of an engine, but no response. He frowned and called again, "Syaoran?"

"Just one-"

He was cut off by a loud _BOOM_ which trailed off into a high-pitched whine as black smoke wafted from the far corner of the shop. Fay smacked a hand against his forehead. "Syaoran, Sakura?" he called, "Are you two alright?"

Syaoran's head popped up guiltily over the top of the smoking black tank, but it was Sakura who shouted back to reassure him. "We're fine – it was just an exhaust valve off the combustion chamber. It got stuck and the chamber overloaded and…" her voice trailed off and was replaced by metallic clinking and clanking, her train of thought clearly derailed once again by her repairs.

Fay cocked an eyebrow at Syaoran and grinned lopsidedly. The kid was certainly eager to help (and _especially_ eager to help Sakura), but his youthful enthusiasm coupled with a complete and utter lack of mechanical knowledge was proving to be a hazard to everyone's health. Still, Fay couldn't fault him; he hadn't had much knowledge of _anything _that wasn't contained in a book before he'd arrived here and, after he had successfully managed to shatter an entire set of dinnerware during the course of one week, it had almost unanimously decided that the shop would be a much better place to put him to work. There were fewer things down here to break – or so the argument had gone – and, apart from the occasional explosion, it seemed to be working out well. It was fun, watching the two of them interact across the otherwise dank workshop, and Fay couldn't help but feel a small swelling of parental pride to see the young man so obviously enamored of the girl he had unofficially claimed as his "daughter." "Can you get something for me?" he asked, stifling a chuckle as Syaoran quickly jerked the hand scrubbing the soot away from his face to nod, "You remember those jugs of grain alcohol we got as trade about a month ago? The ones Yuuko said were so foul they would scare the sack off a tanuki?" Syaoran nodded, lip curling at the memory. "Go grab one for me out of storage, would you?"

Syaoran hesitated for a moment, but nodded once again and peeled away his thick leather work gloves, leaving them to hang from Sakura's engine as he took off to the storage cellar. Fay whistled to himself and turned back to his workbench. He picked up the smallish contraption he'd spent the better part of the afternoon hammering away at and turned it over in his hands. The black Mokona had caused nothing but problems since the day it was first put together; it continuously bounced into walls, its storage compartments chewed up anything that was placed in them, and it required an obscene amount of alcohol just to keep the combustion chamber fueled (more than, by all rights, should have been possible under the laws of physics, as currently understood). Fay grinned – with a little bit of luck, he may have just solved both problems…

Syaoran came staggering back a moment later, swaying under the weight of the jug. He hefted it to rest – at Fay's waved instructions – atop the workbench and stepped back to stare quizzically at the older man. "You're not going to drink that, are you?" he asked, nose creeping up his face.

"Don't be silly," Fay chided, scouring the bench for a canister, or a bowl, or a cup, _something_… He finally settled on a battered tin mug, which he'd probably meant to return to the kitchen ages ago, and handed it to Syaoran, who balked. "Just hold onto it for a second," he instructed, and set about plucking the cork from the mouth. It took less time that he had anticipated – which probably also accounted for a good deal of the contents' foulness – and he heaved the jug up and off the counter to fill the mug. The alcohol splashed clumsily from the open neck and splattered over Syaoran's fingers, but he managed to hold the mug mostly steady as it was filled.

Fay deposited the jug beneath the work station and set about lighting the Mokona's engine, twisting and folding the left ear until he heard the distinct clacking of flint stones and the eventual _whoosh_ that announced the ignition of the alcohol burner deep within its innards. Pleased, he folded the right ear down until it lay flush against the Mokona's side and motioned for the cup as the mouth slowly wound its way open. He dumped the contents of the mug into its mouth, unfolded the ear, and pressed the blue knob on its forehead fully in. "Now," he said, leaning back against the workbench with his arms folded across his waist, "We wait."

"Wait for what…?" Syaoran looked nothing if not confused. He watched as the cylinder picked up speed, chugging swiftly and rocking the Mokona back and forth on its tiny feet. His eyes opened wide as its mouth opened wide and released a puff of steam. "Um, Fay," he choked, "I know I'm sort of new at this and all, but I don't think it's supposed to do that…"

"Aaahaha," Fay waved this away, "Relax. I swapped around the tubes for the exhaust port and the condenser – it's set up to spit the steam out once it runs through the main chamber."

"But you're going to run out of water-"

"It's fine! Really- _Oh_!" he grinned as a loud snap sounded from somewhere inside the Mokona, "Won't be long now." The Mokona itself continued to chug and sputter, though now it had stopped releasing puffs of steam. Syaoran continued to stare, dumbfounded, for the next several moments until a sharp bell sounded and Fay once again snatched the mug up. This time, he cranked the right ear upward until it stood at full attention and folded just the tip forward. The mouth opened partway – just enough for a small brass spout to peek through. Fay set the mug just below the spout and tapped the blue knob on the Mokona's forehead. Within seconds, latches caught and gears ground…and a steady stream of _something_ dribbled from the spout into the mug. "Ahahaha!" Fay exclaimed, "Success!"

"It's," Syaoran balked, "What is it?"

Fay swished the mug back and forth under Syaoran's nose. "Taste it!" he encouraged.

Syaoran took a few steps backward and screwed up his face; he remembered _exactly_ what had gone into the Mokona's mouth, and wasn't particularly eager to ingest the aftermath. "That's okay," he held up his hands, "I don't think…"

"Aww," Fay held the mug to his chest in a mock pout, "All my hard work! It should taste so much better now, too!" He sniffed at the mug and shuddered as the noxious fumes wafted to his nose, "Well, at any rate, it's more potent!" He took a small swig from the mug and nearly choked, but quickly swallowed the contents down and forced a smile. "Yes sir, _definitely_ more potent. And if you don't want any, there will be more for me and Sakura!"

"More of what?" Sakura asked, appearing suddenly at their side. Her eyes widened as she spotted the Mokona, the spout still dangling from its lips and dripping occasionally, then darted to the mug in Fay's hands. "Oh, Fay!" she exclaimed, eyes shining brightly from behind the smudges of soot and oil staining her face, "You did it! You made us a distiller!" She leaned in closer to examine the Mokona, "But it's so small! How did you fit it inside Mokona?"

"Aha!" Fay laughed, "Well, I had to make a few minor alterations. I attached the condenser to the second boiler, so the alcohol that burns off first floats into there. Once the second boiler is half full, that valve shuts off and opens the chamber into the water tank instead – that way all the remaining water that boils off ends up there. And finally, all the used steam that gets pushed through the engine cylinder goes to the exhaust port instead of the condenser!"

"It's great!" Sakura agreed.

"So," Syaoran scoffed, "You're burning alcohol to make…more alcohol? Isn't that…kind of a waste? Wouldn't it make more sense to route the distilled alcohol into the fuel tank?"

Fay and Sakura looked _very_ patiently at Syaoran. "It's the principle of the thing!" Sakura insisted, "It's exciting because it _worked_! We can improve on it later…"

"Exactly!" Fay agreed, "Besides, what fun is it to pump the alcohol back into the fuel tank when we can just as easily drink it?" He passed the cup to Sakura and snickered as she sipped, then choked on the liquor. "I'm a _terrible_ mother…" he wailed as Sakura fought back a chuckle and wiped her face, "_But_, hopefully this will satisfy Yuuko enough to let me work on something _else_ for a while." He toed at a white sheet covering a mountainous pile of scrap.

"I doubt it," a voice rang from somewhere overhead. The three shop workers paused to look up at the second story entrance to the workshop, where a tall man with spiky black hair stood smirking at them from the landing. He was dressed in attire completely unsuited for shop work – a light, linen shirt which he'd refused to tuck in and who's sleeves came only to mid-arm, and loose fitting pants that overrode leather boots more suited for dress than practicality – yet strode down the rickety metal staircase looping along the rounded wall with all the command of a regular, commanding footsteps bouncing and echoing throughout the small chamber. "And what the _hell_," he added as he approached the bottom of the stairs, "Are you doing giving my sister alcohol?"

"Oh, Touya!" Sakura scoffed and choked back another gulp defiantly, "Stop treating me like a child!" She coughed and sputtered, liquor spraying from her mouth and dripping from her nose. Syaoran quickly leapt to her side to pat her back and wipe the spray from her face.

"I'll treat you like an adult when you can hold your drink, _Monster_," Touya laughed, but stared daggers at Syaoran.

Fay quickly stepped between them. "Why don't you guys go get cleaned up," he said to Sakura and Syaoran over his shoulder, "You've done plenty today, already." He turned back to Touya as they shuffled away, "And to what do we owe the pleasure? Haven't seen you down here in ages," he chuckled as he untied his thick leather apron and hung it from a hook next to his bench, "I have to say, you're looking more out of place than ever…"

"I heard an explosion," Touya answered coolly, "And I thought it might be a good idea to come down and make certain that little miscreant hadn't blown my little sister to bits." He stopped to quirk an eyebrow at Fay, "Have your boots gotten taller again?"

Fay extended his leg and wiggled a pointed toe suggestively. It was true, his already thigh-high boots had gained another inch or two when he'd stopped folding their upper edge down. Still, it was much more fun to tease the other man, especially when he was so notoriously reserved. "Maybe. Why? You want a pair?"

When Touya didn't respond, Fay followed his gaze to the back of the workshop where Sakura and her new shop-hand were busily covering the engine they'd spent the day tinkering about, all shy smiles and stifled giggling. "You're going to have to get used to that," he said lowly, "She's not a teenager anymore."

Touya glared. "Doesn't mean I can't kill him," he spat, "And where do you get off-"

"Oh, hush now!" Fay sang, tossing a discarded leather work glove into Touya's face, "Just think how wonderful it will be once they're married! We'll be grandparents!" Fay paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "Well, _I'll_ be a grandparent; I suppose _you'll_ have to settle for being an uncle…"

"Oh for the last time; I don't care what your little joke is, you are _not_ her mother!"

"And you, my dear Touya," Fay grinned, "Despite your best attempts to prove the contrary, are not _actually_ her father, are you? And even if you were, Daddy's little girl has to grow up sometime."

"She is _my_ responsibility," Touya sputtered, "And if he thinks he's going to- I swear I will skin him alive."

"It's not just him, you know," Fay murmured quietly, nodding toward the back of the shop, "She really does seem quite happy."

"Hmph," Touya folded his arms across his chest and glared.

"Anyway," Fay continued, waving his hand obnoxiously in front of Touya's face, "Was there something else?"

"Huh?" Touya snapped back to attention.

"Well, you're still standing here and not, you know, actively skinning your sister's suitor for smiling at her or stomping back up the stairs in a strop. I thought maybe Yuuko sent you for something."

"Right," Touya narrowed his eyes, but peeled them away from his sister long enough to focus on Fay, "Seems your latest near-death experience has gotten himself up and about."

"My _what_?"

"You know. That Kuro-gahoosiewhatsit guy you hauled back here. The scary one."

Fay cocked an eyebrow, "Kuro-_whatnow_?" He could only assume this was an alias; Youou had certainly seemed to remember _him_ at any rate.

Touya waved this away. "Whatever he said his name was. Tomoyo has him out working in the garden."

Fay turned back to his workbench and fiddled with his tool set. "Well, that was quick."

"Yeah, he's a real beast," Touya agreed, "Made quite a racket in the kitchen this afternoon. Watanuki finally got fed up and threw him out, so Yuuko sent him out to till the garden for this spring's planting."

Fay quickly set the wrench he had been examining back on the bench and turned back to Touya. "He's _tilling_? I mean- Shouldn't he be resting? And not playing in the mud?"

Touya scratched at his head, "Yeah, I didn't think it was a great idea either, but apparently they've got the motorized tiller up and running so it shouldn't be a big deal. Tomoyo's keeping an eye on him so he doesn't tear anything back open."

Fay frowned, "The motorized tiller, hmm? Well," he eyed the discarded wrench thoughtfully before hefting it back up over his shoulder, "Well, then. I suppose I should go give them a hand!"

"Um, Fay, I don't think-"

"It's fine," Fay sang as he sprinted up the staircase, "Keep an eye on those two for me, will you? Don't let them get up to anything dirty~!" He dragged the last syllables out as far as he was able as he darted across the landing and through the heavy door before Touya had time to protest.


	6. Human After All

I decided it was time to stop being a tease and actually make use of that "M" rating. If men kissing/touching each other is not your cup of tea, you should _definitely _give this chapter a miss :D Happy weekend, and hooray for gratuitous fanservice ;)

* * *

"Not too shabby, on a soldier's allowance."

Youou started, shoving the door harshly across the last few inches into its frame and rattling it just a bit too loudly against the jamb as he balked at the intruder (or guest…or…whatever the _hell_ he was) lighting the sconces mounted at either side of the doorframe. He knew there was a reason he'd invited this interloper back with him, it was just lost in the jingling of the change in his pocket against the key – _the key! there the damned thing was_ – and why were there so many goddamned deadbolts on this door? His fingers fumbled against the twisted, overly ornate base of the key as it slid the bolt into place with a satisfying _thunk_. Satisfied, he turned back into the room, recollections of liquor and vague plans involving it fluttering back through his consciousness.

A dusty bottle wrapped in brown paper waggled itself in front of his face. "Glasses?"

"Right…" Youou snatched the bottle with a half-smirk and headed toward the narrow wardrobe that doubled as a china cabinet, shirking off his jacket and tossing it to land across the table as he went. Fay used the free hand this afforded him to set to unbundling the layers of scarves, jackets, hat and gloves that had mostly failed to keep him warm against the cold Nihon winter that evening. He folded these as neatly as he was able and set them to rest, along with his wrapped package, next to Youou's discarded jacket.

The glasses, much like everything else in the wardrobe, were covered with a thin layer of grime. Youou frowned to himself when a quick huff of air did nothing to dispel the caked on filth and grumbled a bit as he hooked the edge of his shirt around his index and middle fingers to scrub at the insides. He held one of the glasses up into the light to inspect his handiwork – it wasn't beautiful by any means, but it would have to do. He moved to set the glasses on the table and, after only a moment's confusion, found Fay sprawled on the floor (as much as one could sprawl in a seated position), leaning back against the cast iron bed from with his arms draped over wide-spread knees. He patted the floor next to himself and smiled teasingly. "You've only got one chair," he explained, as if Youou actually cared what had spurred this additional bit of nonconformity.

"Tche," Youou scoffed, settling on the floor next to him and passing off one of the glasses. He struggled for a moment with the bottle's cork, frozen fingers sliding uselessly along the slippery bark before finding purchase, but freed it quickly enough and sniffed at the bottle's neck. He recoiled – the street vendor hadn't been joking, this was surely the rankest, most vile liquor he had ever had the displeasure of burning his nostrils with. He cocked an eyebrow at Fay, who smiled and waggled his glass, before pouring a measure for each of them. It _had_ been the last of the fool's money, after all…

"To a successful and hopefully short campaign," Fay announced, banging the rim of his glass gracelessly against Youou's and quickly swallowing its contents. It caught in his throat and he sputtered, fighting valiantly against his body's sudden and insistent urge to expel the foul drink at any cost. Youou grinned wickedly before sipping at his own and pointedly refilling Fay's glass.

Fay regarded the alcohol sloshing around his cup with a calculated mixture of suspicion, disgust, and general loathing and gently set the glass at his feet, refusing to look at it. "Worst two hundred yen I ever spent," he wailed.

Youou snorted and tossed another sip back. He had to agree, and fought to keep his lips from puckering and his tongue from slagging, defeated, down his throat. He scratched at the back of his neck and snorted his derision. "Worst two hundred spent by anyone, _ever_."

"Indeed," Fay laughed.

They sat in silence for what seemed like ages, but was, in reality, probably only minutes. Youou, for one, was thoroughly enjoying the break from chatter, but Fay was quickly reduced to snickering behind his hand.

"What?"

"You're really bad at this, you know?"

"Hnn?" Youou's eyes widened as Fay closed the space between them, bridging the gap on hands and knees, and gently nipped at Youou's lower lip before closing his own over the top. He felt his breath catch in his throat and his knuckles collide with the floorboards as his arms dropped uselessly to his sides; while this was not entirely unexpected (he would have had to have been an idiot not to have seen it coming, and had, indeed, probably gone out of his way to encourage it by inviting him back here…_the bastard_), he was shocked by his own lack of preparedness in the moment and struggled to regain composure. The room suddenly felt five degrees colder – he was certain every hair on the back of his neck was standing at attention – the only source of warmth now the soft heat tugging gently at his lips…

He exhaled shakily and allowed his eyes to flutter closed at Fay's tongue found and teased apart his lips, sweeping once across their surface before plunging to meet his own. He tasted of foul liquor and salt sweat, and the surprising tang was enough to wrench Youou back from oblivion. His eyes opened once again, a feral gleam sparkling across their surface, and focused ruthlessly on the man knelt prostrate in front of him. Without another word, his hands slid from their resting place and dragged Fay to land gracelessly in his lap.

Fay snapped to attention, a surprised cough breaking against his windpipe and eyes dashing quickly from side to side as he registered his sudden assent into foreign territory. He leaned back, squeezing his knees into Youou's hips to steady himself, breathing heavily and looking quite as if he'd expected a punch to the face rather than an invitation to continue. Youou was momentarily lost between laughing at the ridiculousness of this and actually obliging him with a boxed nose for the implication. In the end, he settled for rolling his eyes and hooking a finger beneath the fool's necktie and slipping the red ribbon of fabric free from the fitted tweed vest. With the loose end firmly gripped in his palm, he twisted sharply at the wrist, yanking Fay forward in a floppy, shoulder-first fall, and met him halfway, open mouths smacking together and swallowing muted, hungry noises as he fumbled with the sloppy half-Windsor knot.

It had been _ages_ since Youou last kissed like this – not since the days of slipping out through his bedroom window at night to escape the watchful and disapproving eyes of his father – and he was struck dumb with embarrassment, wondering if his tongue felt as fat and ungraceful in Fay's mouth as it did in his own, whether his fingers were really as slow and stupid as they seemed (or if the endless row of buttons down Fay's vest were just too small and tightly sewn to open easily), and whether the thudding of his heart against his eardrums was audible above the ever-growing volume of his breath. His mind reeled, distracted by these self-conscious idiocies, as Fay's chin kicked forward, breaking their lip-lock and knocking Youou's head backward into the thin mattress of the bed he reclined against. It bounced there once as he gasped for breath; Fay traced his lips down the underside of his jaw, reaching out occasionally with the lower to suckle small patches of skin between them, nibbling and biting between lingering caresses. The full frontal assault of _hot_, _soft_, and _wet_ peppered with _teeth_ and _sharp_ continued as Fay slipped his fingers between their chests to work open the buttons of his double breasted shirt – buttons, he noted, that had the decency to be large and easy to maneuver through their eyelets, unlike these horrible small _things_ holding Fay's vest together that he'd somehow lost track of the in the intervening seconds.

He wrenched his head back up from the mattress – more of an effort than it ought to have been, really, and he huffed with the exertion – and scrambled to regain his tenuous grip on the button row. Fay's mouth found his again, complicating the whole ordeal with its incessant warm _slipperiness_ and coaxing their torsos too close once again and – _GAH_. The urge to be more vertical was quickly overwhelming his desire to fight with tiny buttonholes and blatantly foiling his muscles' attempts to hold him upright against the bed. He slid – carefully, controlled – until his shoulder met the cold floorboards, and dutifully ignored the scrape of a deviously projecting frame bolt as it peeled mercilessly across his shoulder blade. Rolling was easy; rolling such that neither of them ended up beneath the bed was _not_, and after several moments of jumbled limbs and muttered curses, he finally found himself pressed flat on his back, wiry hands clasping his shoulders and bony knees locked against his thighs, with the fool leaning over him like some sort of leering lech, grinning like a dope and _laughing_.

Youou narrowed his eyes, but allowed a sloppy half-grin to pull at his mouth as he _finally_ had enough working space to tackle the infuriating vest, which he _finally_ managed to loosen without much additional struggle, and set about working open the shirt beneath them, tossing Fay's necktie to the ground haphazardly and pushing the freed halves to the sides. His fingers traced a field of roughed scar tissue as they swept up towards Fay's shoulder and paused; the rough patch looked and felt completely out of place on someone so otherwise pristine and well-kempt.

Fay shirked his shoulder in response, trying to shake the hand away, and leaned forward, letting go his iron grip on Youou's shoulders and sliding upward until his elbows cracked against the floor. His knees slid back as well, scraping along Youou's thighs until he lay flush against him, and ground his hips down against Youou's growing erection. This produced a pleased growl, but failed to distract completely.

"That's a nasty exit wound," Youou murmured agasint Fay's lips as he rocked his hips forward once again, "What's it from?"

"It's," Fay breathed, bracing the backs of his elbows against Youou's shoulders and stroking the length of his body against the other man, "Not important."

"Tche."

"Besides," Fay murmured, tracing a jagged scar along Youou's neck with the tip of his nose, "You're not what one might call 'unmarked' yourself. Did you want to stop and give me a history lesson on every scar you ha-"

"Shut up," Youou insisted, closing his mouth over Fay's jabbering lips and gripping his waist tightly. His hands slid up the back of Fay's shirt, fingertips tracing along the notches of this spine, and dragged back down along his sides, thumbs pressing roughly into taught muscle as the remainder of his fingers dipped below Fay's waistband. Fay mewled and sucked harder at Youou's tongue, dragging his teeth down its length as he pulled his shoulders back and pushed up onto the palms of his hands. He panted heavily as Youou's fingers traced around the inner rim of his waist band to the front fastenings and slowly flicked each button through its hole.

The sharp breaths flitting past Youou's hairline as he abandoned the final button were beyond provoking and he eased his hips upward to force Fay back onto his knees, using the newfound gap to slip his hand down the front of the other's trousers and wrap lightly around his cock. His grip moved effortlessly, skin sliding easily back until his thumb met and swept slick circles around the crown. Above him, Fay shuddered and gaped, head lolling forward as he shifted his weight onto one palm and moved the other to reciprocate.

Youou's breath hitched in his throat as he found himself freed from his pants and gripped tightly. The jolt burning up his abdomen quickly melted away any lingering fears of clumsiness as he slipped easily back into a familiar rhythm, stroking and squeezing and thoroughly enjoying the contortions playing across Fay's face as he moved. His stomach tightened and hips pressed upward into Fay's grasp; his neck craned and stretched to meet with lips again, the desire to consume, to _devour_ _something_ becoming impossible to ignore and his free hand _itched_ to occupy itself – seizing, groping, it didn't really matter at the moment. Deciding that one good surrender to temptation surely deserved another, he slid the tips of his fingers up the back of Fay's thigh, tracing his fingers around the curve of his ass, pawing at the lobe, and drawing out a gurgled _mmmph_ of appreciation. Youou pulled forward, dragging Fay's knees and sending his palm skipping across the floor and leaving him panting in breathless surprise when their lips pulled apart. Fay tilted his chin into his chest to stare questioningly, but quickly found his neck forced backward as Youou latched on greedily, dipping his tongue into the dips and curves and savoring the sharp _hee_s and _heh_s of Fay's breath flitting across his hair.

Youou sucked harder and sped his hand, fingers flexing tightly. Fay's strokes became clumsy, fingers flexing without any coordination, until he paused completely and slapped his hand to the floor to support himself. Youou found he didn't care, or didn't have the presence of mind to care; Fay's hissed breaths had drawn into throaty moans that rattled against his teeth and the thighs shaking against his sides kept him teetering on the edge of oblivion. He could feel Fay's muscles tensing beneath his fingers, egging him on, until a bony hand crashed into his shoulder and pinned him to the floor. Fay's mouth crashed down over his own seconds later, sharp teeth dragging against his already swollen lips as a low pitched groan twisted its way around them and down the hollow of his throat. Warm semen splashed against his belly as Fay twitched and spasmed above him; Youou slowed his grip and swirled the pad of his thumb across the crown, pleased with the shuddered aftershocks this brought.

"You…" Fay breathed, staring down at him with a bead of sweat hanging at the end of his nose, "_Fuck_…" He smiled lopsidedly before dipping down to kiss Youou once again – lightly this time – and slowly inched back toward the other's feet.

Youou found himself suddenly very aware of his own neglected arousal and heaved himself up to balance on his elbows, watching intently as Fay, still slightly dazed and with unsteady breath, dipped his head to sweep his tongue out and around the head of Youou's cock. The sight of it was nearly enough to undo him, the warm lips that followed finished him with only a few quick movements. His elbows dug roughly into the floorboards as he flung his head back and bit his tongue, trying desperately to choke back the roar clawing its way up his throat as he climaxed.

He found himself back on the floor a moment later, ears ringing and suddenly very aware of every bit of dirt pecking its way into his back. The sheen of sweat that moments ago had been overbearingly heated was now claiming every bit of the cold draft blowing in from the window as its own and pinching his pores up into stiff peaks; still, he found himself completely unable to muster up the will or actual desire to _move_. Instead he closed his eyes and calmed his breath, relaxing into the slow creep of slumber worming its way through his veins.

"Hey."

There was an annoyingly cool hand pressing against his shoulder. Youou lifted one eyelid and grunted.

"You're not just going to pass out on me now, are you?" Fay was bent over him, smirking with amusement.

Youou dragged a hand across his face. "Did you have something else in mind…?" He was almost afraid to ask. He would have liked nothing better than to drift off to sleep on this horribly cold, filthy floor…

"Of course," Fay grinned and rattled something just beyond Youou's peripheral, "I need someone to help me finish this bottle."

Youou groaned loudly and moved to swing at him, but found his arm quickly captured and tugged. He rolled his eyes but stretched his torso into the pull anyway, until he once again found himself seated and resting against the bed frame. He lifted an eyebrow and stared warily at the bottle being offered. "What the hell," he snorted, accepting, "Morning is going to come too soon anyway."

* * *

Morning _did_ come too soon, as it was wont to do, and by the time Youou returned to his room from the communal baths, the sun was already peeking through the thick curtains. Fay had taken his leave some hours earlier – disappearing just as slippery as he had waltzed in, offering only a small peck on the cheek as "goodbye." Oh, well – it wasn't as if Youou actually expected more to begin with.

He was halfway through dressing when he spotted the package left on the table. He scowled; there was less than three hours before his train left and he had no way of tracking the fool down to return it. He supposed he might leave it with the innkeeper in case Fay returned for it, but if it was valuable, he might be better off leaving it with the local police. He frowned at the brown paper wrappings for a long moment before rolling his eyes and peeling away the outer layer.

Inside was a neatly folded green uniform, trimmed with gold piping. Youou stared in disbelief.

_That fucking idiot._

Youou cursed himself for not drawing the connections sooner – Fay's aversion to the military, his jokes about dodging the draft, his overall jitteriness in that goddamned store… Clearly he'd put a great deal of effort into his decision not to run, and now had left the uniform he was meant to report in sitting in Youou's room. It all seemed so…_typical_, though he hadn't known the man for long. Whatever; it wasn't his problem anymore. He would leave the package with the innkeeper and, in all likelihood, never have to worry about it again.

Probably.


	7. Face to Face

**A/N:** Apologies all around for the long delay on this chapter - I've been working hard on finishing the fic a very kind donor purchased for the Help_Japan auction, and decided that my baby needed to settle a bit on the back-burner for that. On the bright side, now that that has moved into editing phase, you all get an extra-long chapter! Hope you enjoy~!

* * *

Kurogane stared at the puttering pile of crap with as much disdain as he could muster. It wasn't as much as the abomination deserved, surely, but he was tired and, quite frankly, _bored_ with being annoyed. This was the first he'd been allowed to move from the room he'd recovered in, and still had no clue as to where he was or just who these people holding him here were. He managed to curl his upper lip just a bit so there was no danger of anyone mistaking his mood. "Just give me a hoe," he demanded.

"Ohoho," Tomoyo chuckled softly, "Don't be ridiculous. How are you going to hoe with only one arm?" She cocked her head and set her hands on her hips, daring him to answer. "We have to open up that new patch over there," she pointed to a grassy patch off to the left of the exposed garden soil, "You can't do that with a hoe, anyway."

"_Tche_." Kurogane had very few doubts that he would be able to open the ground up – one armed or not – with very little trouble, but decided to bite his tongue. Tomoyo, for all of her unreasonable demands and even more unreasonably sized syringes, was the only person he'd met thus far that hadn't shaken his stomach or made him want to inflict catastrophic levels of property damage. The kid in the kitchen had been the worst – a complete micromanager who insisted on double and triple checking every menial task he'd been assigned with all the fervor of a miniature tyrant. His stone-faced keeper (or whatever the hell he was – Kurogane wasn't entirely sure; he seemed to cause more arguments than he prevented) was of no help whatsoever with his near-constant shrugging and sympathetic looks. Kurogane had only been too happy when that witch had barreled in, shrieking about how she could no longer stomach the noise, and herded him off to assist Tomoyo. She was at least _pleasant_ to be around, even if she _did_ seem to delight in teasing him and _had_ stuffed him into this silly leather boot and cover-all combination that stuck to his legs and made his back sweat.

He stared back at the chugging contraption and, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, pulled back on the lever to shift the rotary blades into drive. The tiller jerked forward, tearing through the packed soil at his feet, and continued on largely of its own accord. Kurogane frowned and followed behind, occasionally pulling or pushing at the steering levers to guide it around corners and between rows. This felt like…_cheating_, somehow. He'd never been fond of machinery to begin with, and the last several years had only cemented this opinion; war machines, farm machines – they all allowed people to live and die with too little effort. It was too easy to take life for granted when a push of a button or pull of a lever decided one's fate, too easy to lose track of what was truly important and get lost instead in frivolous pursuits…

He pulled the lever again as he neared the far corner, stilling the blades but leaving the engine to sputter (it had been a pain in the ass to get started to begin with, and he didn't relish the thought of repeating that particular little profanity-laden endeavor). It certainly _had_ been faster than tilling the land by hand; he was willing to admit at least that much. Unfortunately, unlike tilling by hand, the rotary blades had a rather unsettling habit of kicking any sort of rock or other detritus back at their operator, and the untilled parcel of land Tomoyo had directed him to was littered with plenty of both. Tomoyo herself had already begun clearing the clutter away, tossing small rocks and fallen branches out and away from the main house with wild abandon and looking generally ridiculous as she did so. Kurogane forced down a grin and tramped over to assist.

It was much harder to work with only one arm than he had anticipated. The muscles still worked - even the largest of the rocks should have been no trouble to lift – but the rocks themselves slipped through his fingers, their smooth surfaces impossible to find purchase on. This was going to be a problem when he finally left here – and make no mistake, he _would_ leave – though he supposed it might be useful in accounting for his whereabouts. He wondered if he'd be allowed to return to service-

"Kuro-ga_wuuuuuu_!"

Kurogane dropped the rock he was hefting to glare at the wisp of flail streaking across the garden. It was barreling toward him at top speed, seemingly completely unaware that it was kicking up loose dirt and making a complete wreck of his freshly plowed rows. And _yelling_. Yelling some horrible abomination of his father's name-

"It's _Kuro_-" his protest was cut short by it running directly into his chest and knocking the wind from his lungs.

"Kuro…puu?" Fay smiled up at him, teasing a finger up the front of his coveralls and winking.

"_Ku_-"

"It's so wonderful to see you up and about, Kuro-pon!" Fay cut him off, "Although, I was really surprised to hear they'd put you to work out in the garden already! It's so dirty out here! You really must be as terrifying as they all say if Yuuko chucked you out of the house already! But –oh!" Fay let go long enough to stare at Kurogane in horror, "They didn't even give you eye protection while driving the big, bad roto-tiller? You need goggles!" He reached into his – _something_, Kurogane wasn't entirely sure just what – and produced a comically small set of blue tinted goggles…which he promptly leapt up to slap around Kurogane's head.

"What-" Kurogane tore at the metal buckles binding the ridiculous things to his head, "-the hell are you doing? What the fuck is wrong with you?" He chucked the offensive goggles over his shoulder and glared.

"I'm _helping_!" Fay announced happily. "I felt so bad that poor, wounded Kuro-tan was being made to do manual labor that I hurried up here to help him out!" Fay produced a large wrench from his leather apron and swung it enthusiastically against his palm, "Now, where did you leave that mean old machine?"

Kurogane watched in mute horror as Fay skipped across the lawn toward the puttering tiller and cringed as Fay crouched over its smokestack, stroking his chin thoughtfully, before banging the head of the wrench against the outer casing. Seemingly satisfied by the great puff of smoke that billowed from the stack at this, Fay chuckled and plopped down to sit cross-legged next to the sputtering contraption. "Come here, Kuro-buu," he waved enthusiastically, "Let me show you how to fix this."

"It doesn't need to be fix-" the words caught in Kurogane's throat as Fay's wrench and spun and cogs and wheels and bolts flung themselves to the ground. "_What the hell are you doing?_" he shouted instead and stomped toward the rapidly increasing shower of metal bits.

"Fixing this, Kuro-lin," Fay assured him absentmindedly and plucked an odd-shaped, hollow chunk of metal from the now-choking tiller. "See?" he waggled the metal bit in front of his face, "Do you know what happens if you take this out?"

Kurogane's eyes grew wide as thick black smoke curled out from the engine and snaked its way around Fay's outstretched arm. The coughing and sputtering continued for a moment, rapidly increasing in tempo as the black cloud coiled tighter and tighter, until finally the overworked motor folded in on itself briefly before blowing back outward and showering everything in a three foot radius with a generous smattering of soot, smoke, and oil.

Fay glanced back at the wreckage and wiped the mess from his cheeks. "Huh," he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Well, this is why I brought out the goggles. Where did you put them, Kuro-rinta?"

Kurogane stared back at him, soot-stained and dumbfounded, wondering what in the hell the last ten years had done to this man. He was all too familiar with shell-shock; he'd seen some of the bravest men in his squadrons crippled by the jerking fear-reactions and driven half-mad by hallucinations of previous battles. It was inevitably distressing, and something he had never truly gotten used to witnessing, no matter how many times it claimed one of his comrades. But _this_…

This was something else entirely. In all of his long years fighting and commanding troops, he had never, ever run across something capable of reducing a once bright and respectable (well, semi-respectable, at any rate) man to such a…a…a…blathering _dumbass_! He could feel the inchoate rage building in his belly, forcing its way up through his chest to where it would explode in short order from his mouth-

His imminent verbal expulsion was interrupted by a loud hiss and the replacement of black billowing smoke with heavy steam. He wrenched his accusing eyes away from Fay long enough to determine that Tomoyo had emptied a bucket of water over the tiller and was now regarding the two of them with a curious expression.

"Tomoyo…" Fay whined before Kurogane had regained his wits, "Now I'm going to have to take the whole thing apart to be sure you didn't knock any of the smaller bolts loose." He buried his face in his hands in mock despair.

"You were going to have to do that anyway, you moron!" Kurogane shouted, "What the hell were you even thinking?"

Fay slowly eased himself to his feet, swiping at his leather apron to remove some of the soot deposited there and frowning when his blackened gloves left and even larger mess. "I was thinking," he murmured, "That this afternoon had been awfully dull, and wasn't a bit of excitement in order?" He grinned.

Kurogane's upper lip pulled back in a sneer as he wrestled with the moral voice in his head that insisted that it really _wasn't_ okay to punch a crazy man in the face. Said voice was currently winning, but only by the thinnest of margins; Kurogane was only too acutely aware that the entire contraption could well have exploded and cut short his hard-fought and won life. He wasn't in the mood to die so suddenly from something so idiotic as a misfiring engine, and certain not after he'd so recently recovered from a battle injury. What kind of asshole-

"Let's not worry about it for right now," Tomoyo said quietly, placing a steady hand on Kurogane's forearm, "I'm sure that Fay knows what he's doing. He _is_ our head engineer, after all," she paused to glance at Fay, concern coloring her face, "You will be able to put it back together within a few days, won't you?"

Fay smiled brightly and saluted with his wrench, "Of course, my dear," he bowed forward with a sweeping gesture of his arm, "Anything for you. But, I think you should leave this end of the garden alone. The other one is so much prettier…"

Tomoyo chuckled at this, though Kurogane was keenly aware that her eyes were still trained on him, likely scouring his face for the slightest indication of violent intent. Well, she would have to settle for disappointment; he wasn't so unguarded as to let his anger get the better of him. Not here, anyway, not in this strange house (Was it a house? From the outside it looked more like a small fortress or heavily fortified palace with its dark stone walls, barred windows, spires and turrets. He had no trouble at all envisioning a sniper taking aim at him from the higher windows…), filled with insane women with pointy objects who saw no apparent danger in letting clearly insane individuals near combustibles. No, for now the best course of action was just to put up, shut up, and get the hell out of here as soon as possible.

"Come on now, Kurogane," Tomoyo said, gently taking his arm, "Let's get you cleaned up before dinner. Fay – take that down to the shop. And try to avoid running into Touya, if at all possible. He's already in a foul mood from something you said to him earlier."

Kurogane tugged his arm back impatiently. "I can clean myself up," he huffed and stalked off toward the back entrance, casting a final disparaging glare at Fay. Tomoyo only chuckled again and followed closely on his heels.

* * *

This was infuriating. Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. This was _embarrassing_ beyond all reason, and the simple fact that he _felt_ embarrassment was infuriating. So, while the end result was probably the same, this entire exercise was fueled less by rage and more by concentrated humiliation. Not that it mattered; there was no way in hell he was wearing that cravat.

"You need proper attire for dinner," Tomoyo insisted, "Yuuko won't allow you at the table without it. Now, let me just-"

Kurogane's tipped his head backward and hissed a heavy stream of air through his teeth as she looped and fastened the ruffled slip about his neck. He couldn't understand what was so wrong with a bow tie or even one of the newly fashionable hanging neckties that he knew for a fact were hanging in this room's wardrobe. Of course, he didn't understand much about this girl, apart from the fact that she seemed to delight in embarrassing him, and managed regularly to creep under his skin in new and terrifying ways to draw out pointed reactions he was sure he should have been capable of stuffing down. It had been bad enough when she had insisted on helping him bathe (worse when she had announced that he had no reason to be embarrassed about this because she _had_ been his nurse, after all, and had therefore seen everything there was to see and was, frankly, unimpressed) – he certainly didn't need her to swaddle him in bandages he was perfectly capable of tying himself and stuff him into overly exuberant dinner wear like some sort of life-sized doll. It wasn't even that he so much minded the clothes she had chosen (overly lavish and decorated with exorbitant frills and ruffles and metallic baubles though they were), but the constant mothering and refusal to let him get on with things and look after his own damned self was irritating at best and downright suffocating at worst. He wasn't a goddamned invalid, after all.

"There you are," Tomoyo's eyes sparkled as she eyed him, "You look lovely."

Kurogane closed his eyes briefly. "Thanks," he managed through gritted teeth.

"Oh," she bit her lip apprehensively, "One more thing." She quickly darted over to the nightstand and rifled through the drawer, eventually fishing out a small box of pins. Within a moment she was back by Kurogane's side, swiftly snatching up the empty left arm of his jacket and expertly folding and pinning the free-floating vessel into a neat little nub below his shoulder. He sighed; he really didn't need to be reminded of his lacking limb, but then he supposed he didn't really need a floppy, vacant sleeve swishing at his side either. She patted her handiwork with her fingertips and stepped to his front for a different angle of inspection. Seemingly satisfied, she grinned and offered her arm. "Shall we?"

"Mmm," Kurogane grunted as he slipped his own arm through hers and followed her spritely steps into the hallway.

His earlier irritation at her constant presence quickly faded as they wound their way to the dining hall through dark hallways and narrow chambers. The entire building seemed to have been constructed with internal defenses in mind, and functioned as much as a distraction as it did a residence. Either that or it had been constructed with absolutely nothing in mind (no plan, no purpose, and quite possibly no coherent though) – the winding hallways twisted and split around piled rooms, ran up and down stairways and crashed to abrupt halts in unmarked dead-ends. Where the hallways opened into broader corridors, the floors were littered with podiumed sculptures and ancient suits of armor – some aged and rusted beyond repair, some polished to a dull shine that glinted in the dim light of the gas lamps – and magnificently stuffed and manicured mounts of wild deer, moose, boars, and several exotic species that Kurogane didn't recognize, jutting out from the walls. Together, the creeping walls and congregation of ostentatious floor art created an obscenely well-decorated labyrinth that was going to take him a least a week to learn to maneuver. He memorized the pathway as well as he could, noting the most striking pieces of art and architecture to begin with – he had no doubt there would be time to memorize the lesser details in the days to come.

Their wandering eventually led to an ornate set of oak double doors which opened easily at Tomoyo's gentle touch. The room they opened into was paneled with the same dark wood trim as Kurogane's, and rich velvet drapes blocked most of the light streaming in from the oversized windows. The little light available in the room poured off of a brassy chandelier which hung low over a round, tiered table set with china in the center of the room. The seats around the table were empty apart from a slight man with silver hair and round, dark red glasses resting on his nose. He perked up at the scuffle near the doorway and waved amicably.

"Tomoyo!" he smiled, then twisted his face into a not-quite-frown, "And who's that with you? I can't quite make them out…"

Tomoyo tightened her grip on Kurogane's arm and practically dragged him to the table, stopping only to pull out the chair next to the silver haired man for him and gesturing sharply for him to sit. "This is Kurogane – Fay's latest rescue pet."

"Oh for-" Kurogane growled, "Would you stop-"

"Kurogane," Tomoyo cut him off with a smile, "This is Yukito, Fai's first rescue pet."

Yukito laughed at this and offered his hand, flinching only slightly when Kurogane nearly crushed his fingers in an over-enthusiastic grip. "We seem to be accumulating at a rapid pace here," he chuckled, "Though Syaoran seems to be in better shape than the two of us," he paused, wincing slightly, "You're going to have to excuse my forwardness – I can't see well anymore, only a small bit in my left eye," – he lifted the deep red glasses slightly off the bridge of his nose to reveal extensive scarring around his battered eyes – "So I've only heard rumors." He paused for a moment, seeming to regard Kurogane with all the vision he claimed to lack. "You didn't flinch," he said after a moment, "So you were a soldier, after all."

Kurogane balked and cocked an eyebrow. "I should have been wearing a uniform," he growled, "It's not like it was a secret."

"I'm sorry," Yukito said immediately, "I didn't mean to imply anything. I was a surgeon, before I came here, and the uniform-"

"That's about all he needs to know, Yuki," a voice sounded from their side. Kurogane looked up to find a dark-haired man scowling around a large serving tray hefted on his shoulder. He stomped quickly to the table and set the tray – steamed greens and loaves of bread from the look of it – on the upper tier of the table, never letting his glaring and suspicious eyes stray from Kurogane's face.

Kurogane returned the glare with equal animosity. "And you are?" he barked, unimpressed with this little ploy for dominance.

"This is Touya," Yukito answered as the dark-haired man pulled out the seat next to him and sat with a huff, "He's unhappy that another person has been brought here, so you're going to have to forgive him."

Kurogane glowered past Yukito and shrugged. He really didn't blame this Touya – he wouldn't have been pleased about strangers invading his home in the middle of a war either. Especially not this deep into the outer territories, where animosity toward the army was the strongest and the rebellion the most fanatical. It wasn't difficult to understand why; in the ten years since the military initiative against Celes had begun, the outer territories had been the hardest hit of all Nihon. First to be attacked by the invading Celesians, they had also found themselves the most heavily militarized – entire farming communities had been fortified, their sons conscripted and their lands commandeered for bases and natural resources. Many had been wiped out; more had been shunted into enduring poverty. What had begun as simple revolts against the seizure of their lands had grown into a larger rebellion against the very government that fought to protect them. Nihon was now left fighting a war on two fronts, though it refused to acknowledge the civil war brewing within its own boarders while the threat from Celes remained. After years of being stationed in the outer territories, Kurogane had ceased to wonder where their animosity stemmed from, though his name and rank demanded he refrain from sympathizing.

The attitude certainly didn't surprise him, though he was fairly confident that he hadn't fallen in amongst a group of rebels; what had that witch said? _A den of thieves, __draft-dodgers, scavengers – standard, run-of-the-mill cowards and refuse. _They certainly didn't seem to be militant, and they _had_ saved his – a soldier of Nihon's – life, but he would keep his guard up just the same.

"He forgets that Yukito was the same way," Tomoyo chuckled, which only shifted Touya's glare to her. She smiled sweetly and patted his shoulder as she waltzed from the table toward a second entrance at the far side of the room. "Yukito, you can keep the peace here while I help bring in dinner, right?"

"Of course!" Yukito smiled, "If Touya gets out of line, I'll bend him over my knee."

Kurogane's eyes widened slightly at the bawdiness of this comment, but kept his mouth closed as Tomoyo departed and left him alone with the unlikely duo. He studied his reflection closely in the china while the two chattered quietly, seemingly immune to his presence at the table. It was, if nothing else, exhilarating to find himself so completely and utterly ignored after his recent tenure of constant companionship, and he relished his moment of quiet.

It was, of course, almost immediately interrupted by the return of a particular loud idiot carrying a tray of bottles and glasses, which he balanced precariously at the edge of the table while one hand fiddled with something just below the rim. Within a moment, an ignition was plainly audible and the lowest tier of the table began to chug slowly about its axis. Fay distributed the glasses next to each plate as they worked their way around and filled each with a generous helping of whatever liquor filled the bottles. Kurogane scoffed as Fay stopped the table's rotation just as unceremoniously as he had started it and took a seat opposite Kurogane, grinning all the while.

"You clean up well, Kuro-sama."

"Goddamn it…"

"There is to be no vulgarity at my table," an imperious voice declared. Kurogane looked up to find the insane witch doctor leaning against the doorway he had come through with one hand at her hip, surveying the small collection of people gathered around the table. "Which probably means you're doomed to spend most of the meal in silence, Kurogane," she grinned and waltzed forward to take a seat next to Fay, "Where is everyone?"

"We're right here," Tomoyo answered from the opposite doorway. Like Touya before her, she carried a large tray stacked with dishes and was accompanied by a second, ginger haired girl and an exhausted looking young man pushing a cart. She smiled at Kurogane and motioned to her companions, "This is Sakura and Syaoran, Kurogane. I apologize, Yuuko, there was some trouble in the-"

The door behind them banged open against its accompanying wall as the miniature tyrant Kurogane recognized from his earlier work in the kitchens stumbled through backward, wielding an enormous cauldron. His stone-faced keeper followed close behind, one hand pressed tightly against his ear and the other hefting the Mokona previously used to guard against Kurogane's free movement and a nearly identical black counterpart.

"You JERK! I wasn't the one who nearly blew our cover! YOU were the one who couldn't be arsed to practice walking in heels ahead of time! And who uses a shoe as a dagger, anyway? I swear, working with you is like-"

"Watanuki," Yuuko cut him off sharply, "Now is not the time."

"-Kitchen," Tomoyo finished with a grin, "And this is Watanuki and Doumeki."

"Huh?" Watanuki set the cauldron on table with a thud and looked around confusedly until his eyes settled on Kurogane, "Oh, right." He settled irritably into a chair and continued to glare at the man he'd entered with as he pulled out the adjoining seat.

"Now that we're all settled in," Yuuko said once the fidgeting had subsided, "Let's begin dinner with a toast to our new companion's health. Kurogane, it's nice to see you're making a full recovery. And Watanuki and Doumeki – it's good to have you back with us once again. While Touya is doubtless a capable chef, truly, nothing compares to your dishes."

A chorus of "cheers" accompanied raised glasses around the table, with the exception of Touya, who pointedly left his glass resting on the table and reached instead for a serving spoon.

"Now," Yuuko continued, twisting the dials on the Mokonas' foreheads and sending them hopping across the table, "There still remains the question of just what to do with you while you're recovering. It seems that the kitchen is not a good fit," she paused to cast a meaningful glance at Watanuki, who narrowed his eyes in turn, "And it seems you had trouble in the garden as well."

"_I_ didn't have trouble," Kurogane snarled indignantly and jabbed his fork forward to point at Fay. The white Mokona, paused near his plate, opened its mouth threateningly and he quickly set the fork back on the table. "He was the one who nearly killed us by blowing up the tiller."

Fay snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, Kuro-tan. I only pulled the valve hinge to clean it – you weren't in any danger."

"Don't play stupid with me. There was smoke and an explosion."

"Yes," Fay continued, grabbing the black Mokona and bending the arm until it spat a bright red sauce onto his plate, "You tend to get smoke when you close off the exhaust port. And the explosion…well, think of it as more of a loud cough," Fay paused long enough to fiddle with something beneath the table again, which promptly set the top tier rotating. "Also – I think you may have better luck expanding the south end of the garden, rather than the north. It gets more sunlight and we could probably dig a culvert down to the edge to bring in water run-off from the hill."

Yuuko set a serving spoon back against the table and cast a confused look at Tomoyo. "I thought we had decided on the south side?"

Tomoyo frowned. "We discussed it. But it's so rocky, I thought it would be better to go with the north end this season – we need to get the seeds started as soon as possible."

"Hmm," Yuuko considered this, "You're correct in that. Still, I don't want you ripping up the north end. I think we can spare a couple of people to help you clear out the south while Fay repairs the tiller. That should keep us on schedule." Tomoyo nodded politely as Yuuko turned her attention back to Kurogane. "It would appear," she said slowly, a wicked gleam dancing across her eyes, "That you have abominably little experience working with engines."

Kurogane cocked an eyebrow. "And?" he demanded.

"Ah," Yuuko grinned, "It's our primary source of income here. If you're to be useful, and pay off that debt you owe us, it would be advantageous for you to learn something."

"_Tche_," Kurogane eyed the rotating table and the metallic rabbit-things bouncing across it, depositing saucy messes on the diners' plates, and was suddenly acutely aware of the quiet chugging of the motors within each. He sneered. It was pointless luxury; the table certainly wasn't accomplishing anything that a set of wheels beneath its tiers and a small push from a human hand couldn't – it wasn't even doing all that great a job spinning itself, truth be told. And the Mokonas appeared to be nothing more than condiment dispensers that (for some ungodly reason) doubled as flame-throwers. "I'm not interested in producing frivolous garbage so that you can line your pockets," he said levelly.

Several sets of eyes around the table widened, but Yuuko only laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Such vigor!" she exclaimed after she had calmed herself somewhat, "I can only assume that you're referring to some of our simpler gadgets around the house when you say 'frivolous garbage.' You might be right," she paused to chuckle again, "However, one can't build a masterpiece without creating a few pieces of glorified scrap along the way."

Kurogane felt his lip pull back as one of the glorified pieces of scrap paused once again at his plate, this time showering his serving with a deluge of red glop, and stared back at Yuuko.

"Everyone must practice their craft," she said, "Surely you were trained in combat. Or did you burst from the womb with a sword in your hand?"

"That wouldn't be terribly surprising for Kuro-sama," Fay grinned. Kurogane glared back at him.

"Perhaps a good teacher is what you require," Yuuko pinched her chin thoughtfully, "Fay has been instructing Syaoran in some of the finer points of engine production. If he were to take you on as a second apprentice, you would be able to work off some of what you owe _him_ while gaining skills that would allow you to pay off the remainder of your debt to us as a whole."

Touya bristled at this. "Surely you can't be serious," he spat, slamming his fork down on the table, "It's bad enough that we have one completely untrustworthy hack in that workshop – we certainly don't need a completely unknown stranger down there as well!"

"A fair point," Yuuko conceded, "Though, really, there's nothing especially…_sensitive_ being built down there at the moment. And, even _you_ must admit, if he proves to be trustworthy, he would make a remarkably good test candidate for some of our more advanced research." Kurogane followed her eyes as they traveled away from his face and stopped to rest conspicuously on his empty shoulder. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wondering how he was meant to respond to a look like that.

He was, mercifully, spared from having to respond at all by Touya slamming his fist into the table and rattling the china. "He is a soldier," Touya growled, "And not only that, he's taken the name of Reed's late second-in-command – he's obviously a loyalist, not a conscript. If you think there is _any_ way that I am allowing him access to _any_ of our work-"

Yuuko held up a hand and lowered her eyes to quiet Touya's rage. "Once again, Touya, you have a fair point. However, if you truly wished to judge people on their names or family, then surely my own name and family connections to Fei Wang Reed would have prompted you to shun my assistance."

Touya's eyes remained cool. "That is an entirely different matter! You worked with our father! We've known you for years – this man shows up here and you decide on a whim that he's trustworthy? I don't understand what is going on in your head!"

"Calm yourself, Touya," Yuuko soothed, "I am not suggesting that we simply divulge all of our work to a complete stranger. I'm simply stating that, as we cannot allow him to leave, we have enough safeguards in place here to at least consider the possibility. Providing he proves to be a useful asset, after all." She eyed Kurogane once again, and he felt a cold shiver travel down his spine. There was a definite irony in having his honor questioned by this woman that he found he did not enjoy one bit. His earlier assessment had been correct – there was no love lost between these people and the military. Still, as viscerally as it affected him to hear his father's name bandied about as a smear, he held his tongue. He had known General Reed personally; after his father's death at the front, the general had been the one to step in and assist Kurogane in sorting out their estate and establishing himself as a leader in his own right. He had always held him to be an honorable man; these people had clearly been poisoned by the propaganda campaign that had taken such deep root in the outer territories. If they were indeed militant, he would deal with them later; for now, he had enough sense about him to see the forest for the trees.

Touya shook his head in exasperation. "You are far too trusting."

Yuuko threw back her head and laughed at this. "All these years, darling," she chuckled, "And you still doubt the veracity of my information network. You should know better than anyone that I _never_ trust what I can't verify."

Touya considered to stare coldly, but didn't argue the point further. Yukito laid a gentle hand over his and squeezed gently. "Touya," he said quietly, "You can always go back to the workshop if you're concerned."

Touya seemed to consider this, then sighed and turned back to his food. "You can count on it."

Yuuko smiled broadly at Kurogane, "Well, then. It would appear that you'll have your work cut out for you. Here's hoping you're up to the challenge." She lifted her glass. Kurogane lifted an eyebrow. "For now, I think I will allow you free run of the house – though keep in mind it's very easy to get lost here, and even more difficult to find you once you have. And _do_ remember, should you try to leave-" she tapped the white Mokona's forehead.

It spit a steady stream of flame directly toward Kurogane.

Kurogane narrowed his eyes and inhaled sharply. Just _where_ had that idiot brought him?

* * *

The household was long dark, the majority of its dwellers having retired some hours earlier. Kurogane paced about his room, pouring over questions that still had no concrete answers. He had no idea where he was, no idea who these people were, what they were doing, or how Fay fit into this mess. He knew only that he was unwelcome, suspected, and possibly in enemy territory – though, truth be told, he had a hard time regarding any of them as actual _enemies_. Mostly they just seemed to be a collection of harmless recluses with odd hobbies, with the probable exception of that _witch_, who almost certainly had something up her sleeve.

The bare wood floor was cold beneath his feet as he plodded over to window, the light bed clothes he'd been given swishing about his ankles, and peeked around the heavy curtains. He had ruled out escape through it earlier – even if he had managed to bend the bars guarding their outer surface with his one arm, he would have faced a three-story drop down a sheer wall with nothing in the way of footholds, and even _then_ would have found himself at the mercy of the expansive wilderness visible in all directions. He stared out for only a second before letting the curtains slip back to their original positions and abandoning the window altogether.

He padded back to the heavy door to the hallway, pausing to pick up the lamp from his table, and was pleasantly surprised when the handle creaked beneath his touch. Apparently they hadn't felt the need to lock him in, then. He opened the door slowly, quietly, and edged his way out into the hall. The darkness hung thickly – the wall lanterns had all been either doused or dimmed, leaving only the barest amount of light flickering about – and it was quiet apart from the steady _stamp-plonking_ of the Mokonas up and down the corridor. Kurogane lifted an eyebrow as the black one skipped past him, perhaps blissfully unaware of his presence, or perhaps less cunningly designed than its white counterpart; either option suited Kurogane just fine as he crept away from his chamber. This was as good a chance as any to familiarize himself with the layout of this house…outpost…fort…_whatever_, and he was certainly not going to waste it.

"Sneaking out so late at night, Kuro-tan? Mommy would be most disappointed."

Kurogane spun to find Fay leaning against the wall on the opposite side of his doorframe, his face partially obscured by a protruding wall lamp and his arms crossed casually across his chest. Like Kurogane, he was dressed in long-sleeved pajamas, but unlike Kurogane he also donned a ridiculous night cap, which barely stretched over his intricately knotted hair and bulged absurdly at the back where he had tied the tendrils into a thick binding, and a shaggy pair of fur slippers that undoubtedly served not only to warm his feet against the cold of the floorboards, but also muffle his steps. Kurogane cringed; he would need to put far more effort into keeping aware of his surroundings if he was being watched like this. "What's the point of unlocking the door if I'm still being guarded?" he growled.

"I wasn't _guarding_ you, Kuro-rinta," Fay sang with a smirk, "I was just heading back to my room and heard you stomping around yours, so I thought I would drop by and say good evening. Maybe bring you a warm cup of milk to help you sleep."

Kurogane narrowed his eyes, "Slinking in the shadows outside my door is a funny way to say hello."

Fay took a step away from the wall, waiving the complaint away, "I hadn't got the opportunity to knock before you came skulking out here like a spook in the night," he raised his eyebrows appraisingly, "Though I suppose only an idiot would try to escape in silk jammies."

"_Tche_," Kurogane snorted, not buying this line in the slightest. He scanned the hallway quickly for anyone else that might have been lurking, unnoticed, in the darkness. "I was looking for the toilet," he grumbled after a few seconds had passed.

"It's that way," Fay motioned over his shoulder, toward the opposite end of the hallway Kurogane had started down, "Need to powder your nose? It is looking a bit shiny under the lamps-"

Kurogane had had enough of this dance and rounded on Fay, eyes narrowed and lips pulling back into a snarl. "What the hell _is_ this?" he roared, slamming a fist against the wall panels.

"What is what, Kuro-pon?" Fay chuckled, only a hint of nervous energy coloring his voice, "This is a wall," – he patted the panels behind him – "This is a door," – he repeated the action – "And this," he reached forward to dig his index finger into the bulb of Kurogane's nose "Is a big, scary puppy with more bark than bite," his grin grew impossibly wider, "Or so Tomoyo tells me…"

"You _bastard_," Kurogane hissed, "What the hell is this place you've brought me to? And what the hell are you even doing here? Last I knew, you'd been conscripted and, since you don't appear to be injured, you either ran or you've defected. A capital offense in either case. If you've brought me into a nest of rebels-"

Fay threw his hands up, palms outturned. "Oh please, Kuro-buu," he rolled his eyes, "Do any of these people look like rebels to you? Most of them couldn't win a fist fight, let alone have the stomach to plot against the empire. Do you really take sweet little Tomoyo for a traitor?"

Kurogane crossed his arms over his chest. "I've seen stranger things. And that witch woman seems to have an agenda-"

"And once again, you're so obsessed with the military and war and fighting that it hasn't dawned on you that her business might be completely irrelevant to your war efforts!" Fay spat defiantly.

"Then why am I being held here?"

Fay _laughed_. "Because you're a soldier. And just because something is irrelevant, doesn't mean it won't be commandeered. You have no idea just what-"

"You _knew_ I was a soldier when you brought me here!" Kurogane snapped, not wanting a repeat of the lecture he had heard countless times from civilians around his outpost.

"So I did," Fay said with a frown and shirked backwards, "War does funny things to people."

"But not to _you_," Kurogane spat, "You're hiding out here, another listless musician without a cause. And now you've dragged me into your foolishness," he sighed and raked a hand across his face, "You seemed like so much more, all those years ago."

Fay's eyes went terrifyingly wide at this, and he quickly blinked them back to a normal size. "I," he started, voice quavering, "I have _served_ my time. Ten years of service is too much to ask of any man, outside of yourself, it would seem. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to bed." He attempted to slither between Kurogane and the wall, then seemed to think better of it and pushed the larger man out of his way, disappearing into the long shadows.

Kurogane stared at his back for a moment, stewing in his anger. He supposed he might cut the man a little slack – he had saved his life, after all – but the evasive lunacy and outright contempt for simple answers that Fay spewed so easily made it almost impossible. Kurogane wondered once again what had happened to Fay over the past ten years; it was clear that the quirky, though intelligent musician was gone - replaced by this slippery, flailing idiot. It was infuriating enough on its own, doubly so that Kurogane couldn't fathom _why_.

Whatever. He was apparently going to be here for awhile – that would surely leave him no dearth of time to figure it out.


	8. Aerodynamic

"Okay – that's not working! Kill it kill it _kill it_!" The thick black smoke spewing from the exhaust port billowed out in one final, sputtering gasp before tapering off in time with the slowing pistons. Fay backed quickly away from the engine, still bent nearly double and swiping wildly to keep the smoke and soot away from his face. "We're still not getting enough thrust," he mumbled irritably, and peeled the goggles from his face to reveal two perfectly clean patches of skin circling his eyes – a stark contrast to the rest of his sweat-mottled and soot-stained face, "Need a bigger combustion chamber."

"I think you're right," Sakura popped up from the far end of the engine with a frown. She was cleaner than Fay, though not by much; her face may have been relatively unsmudged, but her thick, leather work apron, gloves, and even the dainty pink scarf she used to hold back her hair bore the black markings of a day spent battling dry gears, oil slicks, and irritable combustion chambers. "But, I think," she said slowly, shading her eyes against the glare of their mirrored lanterns to get a better view of the stockpiles across the workshop, "We'll probably have to forge a new chamber and possibly a new exhaust port to fit it. This was the biggest one we had…"

Fay frowned. They'd already had to forge new parts for most of this beast of a machine's clanking innards and he didn't want to deal with the delay this would inevitably cause while Syaoran fought with the forge – melting, casting, then recasting (probably several times – lord love the boy, but metal work just wasn't his forte) because it hadn't set properly. All told, it would probably be another two days before they could fit the finished product, and if there was one thing that drove him absolutely insane here in this shut-off corner of the world, it was the boredom that came of not having an immediate project at his fingertips.

He sighed and swiped a tatty rag from his workbench, rubbing roughly at his face to loosen the caked-on blackness. "I don't suppose we have a mold already made…?"

Sakura's face lit up at this, much to Fay's relief. "I think Brother still has his collection of molds from the old shop. I'll look for him after dinner. I'm sure if I'm the one to ask-"

The door at the landing above them clanked open against the wall just then, drowning out the remainder of Sakura's thought. As luck would have it, she wouldn't have to look very far for her brother at all, as he came barreling through the doorframe seconds later alongside a slightly less enthusiastic, but certainly no less grumpy looking ex-soldier. Fay balked and stuffed down a chuckle – Tomoyo had clearly taken it upon herself to personally oversee outfitting the pair of them for shop work and had done so in a style that was at once functional and flattering. Large silver eyelets, twisted through with thick cord lined the borders of their bibbed leather aprons to weight down the edges and keep them from flapping or curling during work; the sleeves of their shirts were crossed with a legion of straps and buckles that could pull the material tight against their skin or loosen it to breathe as needed; and their gloves had been fitted tightly to the wrist, from where they flared loosely out to the elbow, allowing free movement of the forearm while still shielding it from flying sparks and other flotsam. He liked their boots the best, though (he _always_ liked boots best) – polished black leather up to the knee with enough brass button hooks and criss-crossing straps to keep them tightly closed and prevent chafing, while still managing to be a subtle work of art in their own right. He had to hand it to her – Tomoyo was as much a genius with clothing as Sakura was with machines (and equally skilled with stitching wounds at that). Between the two of them, they could probably arm and outfit an entire regiment for battle. Which was why they were here, after all, he supposed with a frown and looked away.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and whipped his head back toward the winding staircase a moment later – there was no sense in wallowing in circumstances he couldn't change. He grinned, a bit maniacally, "Touya! Looks like you decided to get yourself some boots after all," he lifted his eyebrows, "I knew you were jealous."

His taunt was lost on its intended target, however, who was too occupied at the moment with attempting to strong-arm Kurogane to one side of the staircase and push his way to the front. This was proving to be difficult, party because neither he nor Kurogane were about to fall second in line, but mostly due to the fact that both men were locked into (what appeared to Fay to be, anyway) a glaring competition, their faces twisted toward one another just enough to keep one eye on the staircase, but still far enough off of their path to leave their unsupervised feet shuffling and clanking clumsily against the metal steps as they continued to elbow and casually snarl at each other for the remainder of their descent. Fay dragged the rag down his face despondently – this was shaping up to be even worse than he had imagined. Touya, for all his disgruntlement and snippy commentary, was easily dealt with on a one-to-one basis; so long as Fay kept a steady stream of antagonism directed at him, the older Kinomoto sibling was usually content to hammer away in irritated silence. _Kurogane_, however… Kurogane was shaping up to be a real problem, if the previous night's midnight encounter was anything to judge by, because Kurogane thought he _knew_ things and was developing an annoying habit of asking questions that he had no rights to the answers of. If Fay had a choice in the matter, he would have kept him as far from the workshop as humanly possible, but Yuuko's word was ultimate and final – there was no point in arguing it now.

"Alright boys," he chided as Kurogane's foot hit the cement first. Their shoulders locked for a moment as Touya attempted to muscle forward one last time, scowling between Kurogane for being in his way and Fay for being a general pain in his ass. "What am I supposed to do with a pair of brutes like this, anyway?" Fay lamented to no one in particular, "I need careful hands down here and she sends me couple of thugs who'd be happier hammering dents into my engines than tuning them." He dragged a hand melodramatically across his forehead, forgetting for the moment that his hands were covered in engine grease and cursing himself silently as he felt the viscous slime ooze a broad stripe across his skin and begin settling into his pores. He grabbed the rag back quickly and scoured this away as well, eying up his new recruits from beneath its tattered fringe.

Touya had scrubbed all signs of irritation from his face and was quickly making his way over to his sister, who was waving happily and talking a million miles a minute about the adjustments she and Fay had spent the morning sweating over. Touya seemed interested – which was a fortuitous development, as it increased not only the likelihood that he would willingly go to sort through his old collections for molds, but also the likelihood that he would be doing something other than playing the role of the ruthless overseer while he was down here. Touya was nearly as gifted as his sister – or had been, once upon a time, and it seemed unlikely to Fay that this sort of talent would just fade away. His recent absence from the workshop was better described as a self-imposed exile; after Yukito had arrived, he had announced that he had no further interest in building machinery that could be so easily bastardized and corrupted into instruments of war. (Which was not to say that the years before this had been terribly productive for him either; his mistrust and suspicion of Fay had limited his production to simple household gadgets which, while useful for trading purposes, failed to produce anything new or interesting and left Yuuko smarting over the incalculable lost hours of research.)

Kurogane looked less sure of himself, now that he had reached the bottom of the staircase, and Fay relished the brief flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as he gaped at their massive work area. Perhaps he wouldn't be so insufferable now he was completely out of his element…

There was still the question of what to do with him, though. Fay certainly didn't want a one-armed amateur anywhere near his workbench where he could muttle up god-knows how many hours of painstaking craftsmanship (or anywhere near himself, for that matter, where he would almost certainly continue to pick at open wounds and pretend to see some sort of truth he could never understand), and that just wasn't going to fly. Which left…

Fay grinned. That might not work out so badly, after all. In fact, it might be just what his eternally flustered young apprentice needed – an overly gruff thug that he could order around to his heart's content. Teaching, Fay knew, was often the best way of cementing one's own learning, and between that and keeping Syaoran too occupied to gawp at Sakura like a lonely puppy, Fay foresaw many fewer explosions and mishaps for the lab under this direction.

He turned to face Kurogane, eyes sparkling wildly. "Tell me, Kuro-sama. Have you ever worked a forge before?"

Kurogane's lip pulled back into a hesitant sneer. Fay practically jumped for joy.

* * *

Kurogane, Fay decided as he hauled a heavy carton of supplies onto the flatbed of his fully rebuilt and operational speeder, was quite possibly the most irritating bastard on the face of the earth. Normally, he wouldn't complain about having his baby up and running in record time (or about the practically exponential rise in overall productivity for the shop over the last several days) but knowing that a large percentage of this owed directly to Kurogane's contributions left Fay wanting to do nothing so much as punch the smug bastard right in the face for being such a golden boy. He'd mastered the blasted forge – with one arm, nonetheless – in less than a day and had not only produced perfect casts of the exhaust and combustion chambers on the first try, but had spent the intervening three days tutoring Syaoran on the exact techniques he had so recently learned from the boy himself.

He slammed another chest down onto the speeder. _Irritating_.

"Don't break all the glassware," Touya groaned, setting down a third crate atop the ever-growing pile, "It's expensive enough as it is." He shot Fay a withering look before bending to grapple with the wadded canvas covering and cords as his feet.

"Right," Fay smiled, forcing his aggravation down beneath a cheerful façade as Touya draped and secured the canvas. No sense in letting any of them know how much this entire exercise was getting to him. "Sorry about that." He patted the shaken crate affectionately, as if it were a small child.

Touya's face twisted with something approaching concern. "You sure you're up to this?" he demanded, "Because if anything happens to Sakura while you're in town-"

"I'm fine," Fay laughed and waved this away, "And it's only a trading mission – what could go wrong?"

Touya turned his back, busying himself with looping and knotting the final cords into place over the crates and canvas, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "She'll pick up another insufferable halfwit to dote on," but otherwise ignored him completely.

Fay chuckled genuinely at this and ran a quick tally of everything they had packed – medical supplies, sacks of grain, dried food, seeds, knives, utensils, a handful of gadgets, and few bits of clothing. Not bad, he supposed, though he wondered if it was a bit much. Normally they would head into to town with only one type of good, but with the speeder in need of repair for the past few weeks, they hadn't made any trips at all and Yuuko's stockpiles were growing fat. It would probably be alright – the villagers were likely as eager to bring in new goods as they were to unload them – and so he set about scouring the shop for his companions on today's trip. He didn't have far to look – Tomoyo was eagerly goading Sakura into reciting a very educational, if a bit embarrassed, lecture on the finer points of miniature engine maintenance (which included drawing diagrams in the dust on Fay's workbench and was really too adorable for words), while Syaoran hovered around the two of them, looking nervous and out of place. Kurogane leaned against the bench, looking disinterested and still mildly annoyed that he wasn't permitted to join them. "You kids ready to head out?" Fay called.

"Of course!" Sakura looked only too happy to be relieved of her teaching duties as the three piled onto the large, circular flatbed of the speeder and pulled the cords up and over their laps.

Fay grinned and pulled his goggles down over his eyes before mounting the long saddle seat behind the handlebar controls. "Alright then," he fastened the lap restraint over his legs, "Kuro-tan, can you get us up?"

Kurogane's expression shifted from disinterested to confused. And possibly a bit disgusted. "What the…?"

"The roof, Kuro-rin," Fay laughed and motioned to a large set of gears outfitted with a large copper crank, "I need you to open it and lift us up."

"How the hell is opening the roof going to-"

"Hovercraft!" Fay trilled before he could finish. This was much better – Kurogane was best kept blustering and second-guessing himself. "But it's going to make a mess of the lab if you don't open the roof and jack up the landing platform. So kindly put those enormous muscles of yours to good use and crank us up, would you?" He smiled sweetly and batted his eyelashes – not that it especially mattered behind the goggles.

Kurogane glared for a moment but stomped his way over to the gears and set his hands at the crank. His face strained and muscles of his arm bulged as he worked the pulleys – round and round, up and up, dipping at the knees to begin the next cycle – and gradually opened a split in the domed, corrugated metal ceiling. As each half of the split pulled further down into the walls, the section of floor the speeder was seated on jerked upward toward the light. Kurogane spun the gears; the platform lurched higher. The awkward dance continued until the speeder had reached a height equal to the tallest wall and Fay kicked the ignition into action, leaving Kurogane and Touya to duck quickly out of the way of the propulsive wind.

* * *

"Ease up on the regulator for the back engine a bit!" Fay shouted into the mop of ginger hair fluttering into and around his face. He loosened his grip on the handle bar with his right hand to tap meaningfully at the white knuckles next to it – Sakura occasionally needed a reminder as to which hand worked which set of controls, and starting into a landing with the speeder stacked with all of their trading gear and two of her dearest friends wasn't the best time to quiz her mastery. Touya was already going to tear him limb from limb if he caught wind of Sakura being allowed to pilot the speeder like this, even if they were riding double on the saddle seat with Fay directly behind her and able to correct any beginner's mistakes with a quick flick of his wrist. Not that Fay was terribly concerned with what Touya would do; Sakura's older brother was over-protective to a fault and besides which, it was silly for an engineer to be forbidden to pilot the vehicles she designed and worked so hard to build. How was she supposed to improve on her designs if she didn't develop a feel for the machines themselves? She could plan out all of the fantastically intricate engines she wanted and calculate their efficiencies to her heart's content, but what was the point of all that if she couldn't appreciate their performance? Fay grinned; luckily, Sakura enjoyed piloting almost as much as shop work and was a quick study, to boot.

Most of the time, anyway.

"Keep easing off – _slowly_," he shouted again and lifted his arm to point ahead of them, "You want to land right on the edge of the forest, but close enough to the village walls that we don't have to carry this stuff too far." Sakura twisted the handle appropriately and their forward momentum slowed. "And now put out the wind breaks. It's going to jerk, so be care-" his words were cut short as the compartments on either side of the speed that stored the broad-paddled wind breaks opened and thrust their contents out into the air stream, disrupting the currents around them and jostling the speeder violently as they rotated to vertical. Fay clapped Sakura's shoulder, "Good job! You didn't flinch this time! Now," he yelled, "Give the back engine just enough steam to boot us the last little ways-" he leaned as far as he could to the side to get a better view of the ground below them as they approached the edge of the forest, "Now kill it completely."

Sakura twisted the handle and the back engine whirred to a halt, leaving the speeder hovering, motionless, above ground by the work of the bottom engine alone. Fay felt Sakura tense in her seat ahead of him; this was always the trickiest part. "Alright," he said, with much less volume now that the engine noise had been cut in half, "You can do this! The new stabilizers you built into the controls worked really well – we didn't tip at all when you slowed the back engine. All you have to do now is slowly – _slowly_ – choke off the bottom engine."

Sakura nodded resolutely and reset her grip on the handlebars; Fay held his breath. Slowly, her left hand twisted at the handle-

Fay's heart jumped into his throat as the speeder dropped several feet in the space of as many seconds. "Too much!" he shouted again and quickly twisted the handle back to its original position. Sakura yelped and let go the handlebars, digging backward into his chest. "It's okay," he reassured her, laughing, once he had them stabilized once again, "You just have to get a feel for it. Try it again."

Their final descent was far from perfect – marred with too many sudden dips and hasty corrections – but they managed to set down, in the end, without any major casualties and only minorly bruised egos. (Or possibly _majorly_, Fay mused as he watched Syaoran stagger off to lurch discreetly into a bush. Thankfully, Sakura was too busy warding off praise from an overly-effusive Tomoyo to notice.) All things considered, though, this was probably her most successful landing, and Fay swelled with pride. His little girl was growing up so quickly…

"Fay?" Sakura was staring expectantly at him.

"Sorry," he shook his head clear and peeled his goggles back to perch at his hairline, "What were you saying?"

"It looks like we're expected," Sakura repeated softly, nodding toward the creeping line of children gathering at and peeking around the village walls.

Fay smiled. "They'll be after the candy," he chuckled and began unfastening the canvas covering, "Why don't you and Tomoyo take some of the food boxes ahead and set up right away? Syaoran and I can handle the heavier stuff. Be generous – Yuuko managed to get in a ton of sugar at a reasonable price and they look like they could use a bit of fun." The last bit was all too true, he thought, looking sadly at the children's hollow cheeks and hungry stares. They were all too skinny, and had been for as long as he had known them – the inevitable result of the ravages their homes had sustained. Too much work and too little food for hungry mouths. Half of them, he knew, though he couldn't see much beyond their peeking faces, were covered in worse reminders of the war than hunger – ragged scars, reset bones, angry patches covering joints where limbs once attached. The last battle in this area may have been fought nearly five years previously, but many of these children would never forget.

Sakura, ever cheerful and doting, beamed and hefted one of the larger boxes from the pile. "Sure!" she answered and headed, with Tomoyo, toward the village gates.

Fay turned to Syaoran, who was still busily wiping the corners of his mouth, and grinned. "Feel better?" he asked casually as he began sorting through the pile of crates. Syaoran nodded a quick affirmative and blushed a deep shade of red. "Good," Fay chuckled, "How are your eyes today? Ready to sort out the keepers?" Syaoran blinked at him in confusion, clearly not taking his meaning. "Scrap metal," Fay reminded him, "Are you ready to sort the junk from the valuable?" Syaoran's eyes widened and he nodded vigorously, hefting a heavy box of medical supplies as he did. "Gets easier with practice, hmm?" Fay hummed from behind his own crate, "Though, you should probably err in the villagers' favor today. It's been a few weeks since we dropped by and the kids are looking a little hungry."

"But won't-" Syaoran stammered, freezing in his tracks, "Won't Yuuko-"

"I doubt it," Fay murmured, though he was still uncertain himself. Their benefactor always upheld the public persona of a cold, calculating merchant. All of their goods came at a price; nothing was ever given for free, and that was the way it had always worked. Still, one would have to be blind to notice that the prices she demanded of the villagers were things they could easily acquire and had little use for themselves – scraps of metal, discarded weapons and ammunition, broken bits and bobs of old machinery. These were all melted down, rebuilt, and resold to her wealthier clients (except for the weapons, Fay had no idea what she did with _those_); the profits she earned there were put back into shipping in goods for trade with the villagers once again. It was an endless cycle, and Fay hadn't the faintest idea how much wealth she created or lost in the process. He had noticed, though, that she never seemed to mind a bit of…_uneven_ trade with the villagers, so long as _some_ scrap was obtained for their efforts. Which was probably a good thing; his blasted, bleeding heart would have gotten him in far more trouble with a stricter boss.

They hauled their wares just inside the village gates and set about arranging them for easy perusal. Tomoyo had quickly and cleanly set up her instruments atop one of the largest crates and was already attending her first patient – a small boy with a badly infected scrape up his calf – antiseptic and bandages exchanged for a rusty nut and bolt. Sakura had happily pacified most of the lingering children with sweets and was now skipping around with the remainders of them, playing a game of tag that involved spinning the loser by their hands until they were too dizzy to stand. Syaoran gaped at her from his perch next to Fay, where he was meant to be assessing the value of the scraps brought in by the villagers but was mostly confining himself to a vicious cycle of day-dreaming and being snapped back to attention by his older comrade.

Little by little, their piles of goods decreased and were replaced by a stock of metal shining in the afternoon sun. Most of the villagers were cheerful enough, Fay found, despite their absence for the past weeks, though more than a few were aching to vent their frustrations.

"This is sick," the man standing just in front of Fay spat as he lifted two heavy sacks of grain up over his shoulders , "You disappear for three weeks and we've got next to nothing, then you come back like some sort of fucking saviors. How much money is that witch making off of us, anyway? What kind of a sick fuck do you have to be to profit off of our pain like this?"

"I don't think," Fay started, then looked at the ground. It was hardly worth the fight – he knew the man was right. The harvests in the village had been getting slowly worse over the last few years and the villagers themselves were depending more and more on the supplies hauled in by them; what had started as a luxury was quickly becoming a necessity and Fay couldn't blame the man for feeling trapped by it all. But how was he expected to respond to that? Suggest they move away? Where to? With what means? He sighed and looked around the man's shoulder, eager to end the transaction and move on to the next."

"Not so fast," the man stepped back into his line of sight, "You're not fucking listening to me. You've been looking awfully well-fed since you took up with these criminals - coming in here with sugar - _sugar_!" he laughed as Fay's eyebrows raised, "Yeah – I remember back a few years ago when you were just a shitty artist, scraping away here like the rest of us. What's so special about an artist that he gets picked up and taken care of by that witch while the rest of us starve?" The man narrowed his eyes threateningly, "You must be as much of a criminal as they are."

Fay sighed and jumped to his feet. The last thing he wanted today was a fight, but it never hurt to be on his guard. "I'm sorry," he said firmly, "We've brought some seeds for you to try replanting again. Hopefully this year's growing season will be better. I can't even imagine-"

"You're goddamned right you can't!" the man bellowed before he had even finished, fire flashing in his eyes, "You're probably the ones poisoning our fields! If you think you can-"

"I think that's quite enough, Mr. Mayuge," a quiet voice said from behind. Fay felt some of the tension slip from his shoulders and relaxed his stance a bit. The voice was familiar and commanded a fair deal of respect in this town; Fay breathed a sigh of relief as Kakei – the pharmacist and closest thing the village had to a doctor – stepped into view. "I think you should take your grain and go to your family."

The man looked for a moment as though he might disregard this completely and escalate the argument with both of them, but relented after a moment with a huff and stomped away. Kakei smiled sadly at Fay and shook his head. "You'll have to forgive him," he said with a flick of his long brown hair, "They're all getting a bit restless. Worried that the time is soon upon us to abandon the village and find new homes that are more sustainable," he drew in a deep breath, "Still, most of us stubborn idiots are determined to stick it out through one last growing season, at least, in the hope the weather gods are a bit kinder to us this year."

Fay smiled at this, and darted around the crate he had been sitting on. "I wouldn't want to forget this," he said, unstacking and restacking a number of smaller boxes until he found one marked with Kakei's name, "Yuuko sent this for you especially."

Kakei's eyebrows lifted at this. "She'll have me run out of the village in no time if she doesn't stop this," he murmured, only half-joking. "Still, it's a fair price for the information we've gathered, I think."

"Oh?" a shudder of cold ran down Fay's spine. Kakei's partner was notorious amongst the right circles for his ability to obtain nearly any kind of information one desired (provided they could pay), be it troop movements, political scandals, or how this week's horse races had been tampered with. Fay had no idea what his connections were, and had no real desire to; Yuuko trusted him and that was suitable for Fay's purposes, even if it wasn't particularly satisfying. "Good news this week?" he asked hopefully, knowing full well that this was probably futile.

Kakei frowned and waved over his shoulder. "I think, perhaps," he said slowly, "You ought to come back to the store with me to discuss it."

So _not_ good news, then. "Alright," Fay said, turning to look at Syaoran, "Can you manage things here for a bit?" Syaoran snapped once again out of his daze and nodded. Fay returned the gesture, "I'll only be a minute. Call Sakura over for help, alright?"

"Sure," Syaoran replied, and turned his attention back to the villagers. Fay watched him for a moment to be sure he didn't float off into starry-eyed bliss again before heading further into the village with Kakei.

The drug shop Kakei ran had, like all of the buildings here, fallen victim to disrepair with the passing years, yet still managed to maintain an air of dignity that much of the surrounding village had not. "How are you staying in business?" Fay wondered aloud as they pushed through the entryway, "Everything else seems to have closed down."

"Oh, they're still open," Kakei assured him, "Whenever they have something to sell. Vegetables, game, pottery - not much, mind you, but enough to keep their hopes up. I imagine after the harvest this year, things will pick up again. Come now, I think Saiga will be eager to tell you what he's heard."

"I see," Fay frowned. Kakei was winding a deliberately complicated path through the dusty shelves for reasons that were beyond him – perhaps to keep Fay on his toes or simply to keep him too occupied to ask further questions. By the time they reached the backroom, they had likely wound twice the actual length of the shop. Inside the room, to no great surprise (and certainly _not_ looking at all eager), sat Kakei's partner, reclining in a large chair behind a rickety desk with his feet resting on the surface, an unlit, hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lips, and his eyes mostly hidden by large black glasses with ornate silver rims. He didn't rise at their entrance, nor did he make any smaller gesture of greeting; instead, he merely huffed and mumbled, "You're late."

"We had transportation problems," Fay explained.

"You _build_ transportation, don't you?" Saiga grunted, still not moving.

"Which is why we're here today," Fay grimaced. He hoped this wasn't going to continue – Saiga's teasing bouts were entirely capable of dragging on for hours and he didn't really want to leave Syaoran alone for that long…

"Hmph," Saiga finally kicked his feet to the ground and spun the chair to face Fay, "Well then," he rumbled gravely and folded his hands together on the desk, "I'll cut right to the chase. It appears that our good friend General Reed has finally managed to coax some bio-units into operation."

"_Bio-units_?" Fay's blood ran cold. How had that bastard managed to get his hands on…? It was impossible. That technology was supposed to exist in only one place – in _schematic_ form – and its inventor was too stubborn to even assemble a prototype, too afraid that it might be bastardized into just the monstrosities Saiga was portending. If General Reed had gotten his hands on the plans, then that meant-

"Calm down," Saiga said, pulling a yellowed folder from a pile on the desk and flopping its contents open for Fay to see, "It's not your designs. Looks like someone has put this together from scratch. I don't know who or how, but I did manage to finagle a copy of these plans." He scratched at his head, "Thought Yuuko would be interested."

Fay stared mutely at the ink scratches on the paper before him, twisting and weaving across the weathered surface into the framework for a walking nightmare. Guns where arms should have swung, cannons fitted to chests – bodies warped and tortured into machines of war. This was wrong; this was an abomination – there was no way these altered humans could survive for long with so many of these cold metal pieces soldered to their flesh-

"You don't look very well," Kakei's hand was at his shoulder, rubbing comfortingly, "But then, I suppose it is a bit of a shock."

Fay shook head, trying to force the numbing stupor that had all but consumed him away, and looked back at Saiga. "How long have you had this?" he rasped, his voice sounding small and weak in his own ears.

Saiga shrugged. "A week, maybe two. Hard to tell, really. I'm up all night, all around the province – makes it difficult to keep track of dates-"

"Thank you," Fay cut him off quickly, but not impolitely. He gathered the papers strewn across the desk and turned to Kakei. "Will the payment be enough?"

Kakei nodded. "Of course. And send dearest Yuuko my regards." He paused for a moment, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "What do you suppose you will do?"

Fay shrugged. He hadn't the faintest idea – this would be a drastic turning point in the war, to be sure, but what it meant for their group personally… "I couldn't say," he admitted at last, "But I had best return and give these to Yuuko."

"Of course." Kakei did not lead Fay through the winding course once again as he accompanied him back to the front door, instead traveling a straight route and quick clip and hurriedly shuffling him out the door. Fay broke into a run as he left the entranceway to the shop, shielding his eyes as he checked the position of the sun and hoping that it was late enough in the afternoon for them to pack up and return.


	9. Short Circuit

Kurogane scowled at the back of Touya's head as the other man turned on his heel and stormed back up the winding staircase, hair whipping wildly in the wind stirred by the speeder's engines as it soared away from its platform and out of sight. _Typical_. Everyone had once again run off, leaving all the heavy lifting and clean-up for him. He glared up at the retracted ceiling and debated leaving it open to whatever ravages nature felt like throwing through it, but thought better of that after a quick calculation of the whining, screaming, and scolding that was likely to ensue and returned to the crank with a sigh.

The last several days had been a stark reminder of just how _long _he had spent recuperating; the accompanying atrophy of his muscles hadn't appeared extensive at first glance, but was clearly evident now in both the ache of his arm and his general exhaustion after only a moderately taxing day of work. Or maybe it was just the inevitable strain that came of depending on one arm to do what had once been the work of two. Either way, he was grateful to the kid for his help. He certainly wasn't a bumbling idiot like Touya would have him believe, nor was he a well-intentioned klutz like Fay seemed to imply; he was a good kid – a capable kid – he just needed a bit more guidance than either man seemed inclined to give him.

And speaking of guidance…neither Touya nor Fay had let him anything to work on for the afternoon. He supposed he might take stock of their inventory and make up a couple of whatever looked depleted, but he had no idea of how much of what they kept on hand at any given time, or what the exact ratios of the alloys required for any given product were, or even where he might begin to search through the organized chaos that littered the shop to find out. He settled, in the end, for rolling his eyes and cursing the utter dysfunctionality of the entire enterprise.

Resigned, he pinched the index finger of his glove between his teeth and pulled his hand free, casting the empty vessel off to his side to grace the ever-growing collection of useless crap on Fay's workbench. There was no sense in wallowing here all day with no work, especially not when navigating the twisted corridors of this…house…_thing _was still proving to be the bane of his existence. (Twice in the past three days he'd been found by Tomoyo, hopelessly lost in search of a damned toilet. The most recent misadventure had found him trapped in a small room with what had appeared to be several over-sized rats, one of whom had charged him, wielding a long and distinctly mechanical-looking tail, before Tomoyo had appeared and reassured him that it was only a simple house rat and that he was probably hallucinating any "mechanical appendages" from over exertion.) His apron joined the glove in short order and he bounded quickly up the staircase.

The doorway from the shop opened up into a narrow corridor which led, in one direction, toward his rooms (and, he assumed, the others' rooms as well). The other direction led…well, that was the entire point of this exercise, wasn't it? There was a distinct dearth of lighting toward that end of the hall which, while obviously intended to discourage this sort of exploration, was only serving to pique his curiosity that much more. He reached back into the shop's doorway and plucked the gas lamp that sat at the corner railing of the landing, and, after managing to scorch three of his fingers lighting the blasted thing, he set off down the dark end of the corridor.

Kurogane didn't spare much time to examine the walls here, overly adorned with oil portraits though they were, preferring to hurry on toward the far end of the corridor, which came to an abrupt end at a simple, undecorated doorframe. At first tug, the latch appeared to be locked, but with a firm shake and a well-placed kick to the hinges, it opened without much trouble. Stepping through, he found himself midway along the wall of a massive ballroom – or what had once _been _a massive ballroom – its tall, brass-woven windows were draped with luxurious silks and their peaks crept high into numerous vaults in the ceiling. The walls were paneled with a deep rose colored plasterwork and accented with white and gold trim that was only interrupted along the far walls by sprawling pastoral murals. The room might have been called grand, had it not been so disused. Well, perhaps "disused" wasn't the correct word; the room was certainly _used _– cluttered and piled high with wooden crates and draped with oversized schematics – just not for anything resembling grandeur.

He stepped carefully around the crates, gaping at the intricate designs scrawled across the long swaths of parchment. He was unable to make heads or tails of most of the schematics – huge mechanical monsters with multiple sets of arms and legs, rolling pods with belted wheels, wire-framed nightmares fitted with bats' wings – though there were more recognizable designs of looms and mechanized harvesters as well. This surely had to be where the idiot spent his time dreaming up the contraptions he'd kept Kurogane busy constructing pieces for, though he hadn't imagined Fay capable of designing such…what was the word for these? Intricate? Outlandish? _Unnecessary_?

He was vaguely aware of a creaking as he looked, and only thought to turn back to the door in time to see it disappear altogether, blending seamlessly into the paneling. He considered, for a second, heading back and working out how to open it again, but shook it off and continued to wind his way through the chaos – it probably just needed a good kick, anyway. The designs became more and more bizarre the further in he waded, and he paused to trace his finger over one schematic in particular – a high-riding, six-legged walking machine with a spindly set of arms and wire basket where its mouth ought to have been…if it had needed a mouth. It seemed familiar, somehow, though only vaguely, as if he'd seen it in a dream (or, more likely, a nightmare). He marveled at the many pieces plotted out and measured across the yellowing parchment, tangled into working groups, and finally assembled into the beast itself; a twisted jig-saw puzzle, designed and snapped together by a madman.

He was distracted from his musings by a sharp peal of laughter – loud and genuine and foreign sounding to his ears after weeks of naught but Fay's false, hollow chuckles. He followed it toward the opposite wall – where it continued on as a muffled chattering, eeking out from behind a stack of crates and supplies – and stepped around the corner of the pile apprehensively, wary of whom he might be running into this time. He was certain that anyone he might _want _to meet had left for the afternoon, but, with the exit slammed shut behind him and hidden so immaculately within the paneling, this could prove to be the most expedient way out of this…_place_.

Unsure as he had been of what to expect on the other side, he hadn't even _considered _the possibility of finding Yukito perched in Touya's lap, leaning closely over an easel with pen in hand, _or _the possibility that the two of them would be laughing hysterically at whatever obscenity he had just scrawled there. Hell, he hadn't seen Touya _smile _the entire time he'd been here; seeing him laugh and press his face closer to Yukito's ear like this was almost unsettling…

It wasn't to last, however; Touya's back straightened as he caught sight of Kurogane, and his eyes narrowed in irritation. Wordlessly, he slid Yukito to his side on the bench they shared and stalked toward the edge of the pile that had concealed them. "How did you get in here?" he demanded, puffing out his chest to full girth.

Kurogane bit back a snort. For all of this guy's posturing, he was maybe three-quarters of Kurogane's size (if he was being generous) – certainly not anything resembling a serious threat. But, after a week's worth of snarling and snide remarks from the other man, Kurogane was itching for a fight and Touya was presenting a very appealing target for his rage. He pointed over his shoulder, "Door."

"It was locked."

"There was a lock?" Kurogane sneered. _Oh yes_, he grinned as Touya bristled, _just a few more steps and take a swing, you son of a bitch…_He wasn't even concerned with what they'd do to him at this point – it couldn't be much worse than living under lock and key as he already was.

Yukito, it seemed, _was _worried – at least about the potential damage the two might do to each other and the…_whatever_room this was – and quickly inserted himself between the mutual glaring. "It's a bad lock, Touya. You said yourself that it needed to be fixed," he turned back toward Kurogane, eyes still invisible behind his dark lenses, but his expression conveying every bit of seriousness they could not, "You should go back now. Touya's not comfortable with people in his studio."

Kurogane _did _snort this time – at the notion that this mess was anything more than a glorified junk yard, piled high with years' worth of bad ideas and broken dreams. _Studio, indeed._

"You won't find what you're looking for in here, anyway," Touya snarled over Yukito's shoulder.

Kurogane's eyebrow lifted at this. He had no idea what he was mean to be "looking for," but wasn't about to let the opportunity to wind Touya a little tighter slip by. "And where _will _I find it?" he snapped.

"You son of a-"

"Good Lord, can you _smell _the testosterone in this room?" a fourth voice broke into the conversation before Touya had the opportunity to push his way through Yukito. Kurogane didn't need to turn his head to know it was that witch, but he did anyway to greet her with a heated glare. "Good afternoon, _Kurogane_," she smiled, "It seems you're a bit more canny than we gave you credit for." She raked her gaze across his bristling face, eyebrows tilting slightly upward.

"Perhaps you'd like to join me in my office?"

"Not particularly." Somehow, he wasn't surprised when she cackled loudly at this.

"Consider it a favor then," she insisted, gesturing behind her, "A very _large _favor if you prefer."

Kurogane considered refusing her entirely – the near certainty of getting into a brawl with Touya was definitely appealing – but something in her expression suggested that this could well be his only opportunity to get some much-desired answers. Maybe it was subtle twitch at the corners of her mouth, maybe it was the impatient click of her tongue against her bitten lower lip. Either way, he found himself agreeing before he was even fully aware of making the decision and following the swish of her long skirts through the archway and into an overflowing, but seemingly makeshift library. Kurogane cast one final glare toward the duo in the "studio" as Yuuko disappeared into the labyrinth of mismatched shelves and high-piled desks.

* * *

"Now, _Youou_," she said as the latch clacked into position behind him, "You're proving to be quite a troublesome house guest."  
_  
_

"_Guest-"_

"And very much living up to your reputation. For the most part, anyway."

He could feel his confusion and incredulity spilling onto his face, mixing together into an expression that was probably far more vulnerable than he would have liked. His lips pulled tight as he fought to keep himself in control. _"Most?"_he growled, not willing to betray just how disconcerting it was that she knew his name, let alone whatever reputation he had held.

"Yes," she hummed, tapping her fingers across the dark wood desktop thoughtfully, "Though I suppose it's not every day that such a…_lively _dead man shows up on our doorstep. Now, Youou-"

"How do you know me?" he finally snapped, clenching his fists and stomping closer to the desk, "We've never met as far as I know and-"

"Oh, _yes_!" she exclaimed, realization brightening her eyes. Rather than answering, however, she ducked to dig through one of the drawers and rattled through the contents haphazardly, as though she had never seen them before. "Aha!" she finally declared, triumphantly producing a long silver chain and pendant. She offered these across the desk, dangling from an index finger.

_His dog tags._

Kurogane kicked himself for not realizing it sooner – they'd been missing from around his neck for the entirety of his stay, and yet no one (besides this witch) seemed to give any indication that they'd taken them-

"Of course," she smirked as he leaned forward to reclaim his tags, "It would be hard to mistake someone who looks so _very _much like his father."

"_Bullshit_," he recoiled, snatching the chain away and pressing his clenched fist protectively across his chest, "You couldn't have known my father."

"Only socially, of course," she waved this away, "It would have been difficult not to have known a man of his stature in our circles. Back in those days…"

"And what circles were those?" he demanded petulantly.

Her face softened into a smile. "Well, certainly not as bad as anything you're imagining," she folded her hands across her nose and mouth and murmured quietly, "My my, he sneaks around the entire estate, pokes his nose into all the rooms he doesn't belong, never gets lost in the same place twice, and yet somehow still hasn't noticed the family resemblance."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She unfolded her hands only to scratch at her forehead. "Well, I suppose we are only about half-cousins at best, and the Ichihara side of the family is _so _intermarried…though he himself is _obviously _the product of rampant inbreeding, but that's the Reeds for you-"

"Cut the crap. What are you talking about?"

"My third cousin, twice removed – that's what he is!" she finally decided, "Though he might have been a brother-in-law, had life worked out a bit more fairly. I suppose it rarely does, though – or would you disagree?"

Kurogane stared back at her; her eyes sparkled expectantly, as if she thought he might have actually been making heads or tails of the nonsense she was spewing. He sneered – she was obviously insane, babbling on like this about family relationships and inbreeding and expecting him to somehow have a clue in hell what she meant by it all – and clutched the chain in his hand tight enough for the links to dig into his skin. She'd had his tags – that was enough of an answer for him, and he could comfortably get back to working on a way out of here without pondering their connection any further. Now if only she would provide him an opportunity to leave the office…

"No," he said finally, remembering dully that her last words to him had been some sort of question, and took a step back toward the door.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," she continued, eyes toward his empty shoulder, "How are your injuries? Tomoyo says you've been insisting on dressing your own wounds; she very upset."

Kurogane grimaced. He was well aware of _exactly _how upset Tomoyo was – she'd threatened to bind and gag him with the bandages she'd brought with her the night before, when he'd unceremoniously lifted them from her tray and begun winding them about his own shoulder, if he didn't let her have a look. He'd felt it was a great compromise on his part to allow her even a glimpse; he'd been treating his own injuries for nearly thirty years and was doing a damn fine job of it, all things considered. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate her concern, it was just that it was damned insulting to be henpecked and fussed over for things he really could take care of himself. If something went wrong, she would be the first to know, but until then-

"Would you prefer _I _looked after you?"

"_No_." That might have been more emphatic than was strictly appropriate, but diplomacy had never been his strong suit. "What I mean," he corrected, "Is that I am very…_grateful _to Tomoyo. She's kept me from becoming a fully dead man at your doorstep." _There_. That had been at least a _little _diplomatic.

The teasing smirk that had turned her mouth for most of their conversation faded precipitously at this. The remaining frown was disconcerting at best and downright horrifying at worst, especially as he'd considered his last remarks to be amongst his more tactful utterings since arriving. She leaned forward against the desk, chin coming to rest on the open palm of one hand as she scrutinized him. "I'm afraid you don't quite take my meaning, Youou."

"Hah?"

Her frown deepened. "When I say 'dead man…'" she quirked an eyebrow at him, "Gracious, you really _don't_know, do you?"

"Know _what_?" he could feel his exasperation pouring onto his face and cursed this woman for her ability to reduce him to this state. He was able to stand down battlefield horrors without so much as flinching, yet found himself being undone by half-flirtatious taunts.

She exhaled deeply and rose to her feet. "Have a seat," she instructed as she wafted toward the far wall and began rifling through a number of oversized, leather bound books in a corner table.

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself," she hummed, still flipping through yellowed pages, "Though don't say I didn't offer. _Aha_." Apparently having found what she was looking for, she returned to her seat behind the desk and shoved the book across its surface toward Kurogane. "I think you will find several things of interest archived here."

He sighed loudly, but stalked to the edge of the desk to thumb through the pages. Inside was a chronological account of the war and Nihon's political degradation, pieced together from painstakingly trimmed and varnished newspaper clippings – the sort of thing he might have expected to find in his grandmother's library rather than in the collections of a recluse with no apparent connection to Nihon at large. The majority of the articles, unsurprisingly, were centered around General Reed and his campaigns against the Celesians; the more recent of these detailed the slipping public confidence in the monarchy and his eventual installment as acting head of state for the remainder of the war. A record of his father's death at the front nearly fifteen years before was included here – also unsurprising as he had served as General Reed's second in command for nearly a quarter century. There wasn't anything especially "interesting" included here; it was a simple collection of dates and events that even a child could have collected...

It _was _rather odd to stumble across his own obituary in the backmost pages, but he supposed it was inevitable after his unit had fallen and he had disappeared here. His _real _surprise was that she had clipped it at all – he'd never been more than a Lieutenant, and had certainly never had the sort of public appeal his father had wielded. He was at least thankful they hadn't included a ridiculous caricature of him – he'd never forgiven the artist who had contributed to his father's death announcement. He picked at the yellowed corner of the snipping – they really needed to use better varnish to hold these to the paper if they didn't want the entire thing degrading; there was no reason for this particular page to be as yellowed as it was-

"This is dated three years ago," he growled, eyes snapping back toward the witch at the desk.

"So it is," she agreed, continuing to stare back at him.

"Why the _hell_…?"

"Why indeed?"

"Is this a fucking joke?" he snapped, flipping the heavy covers of the book closed and slamming his fist into their broadside. Was this a printing mistake? Why on earth would an obituary even have been published _mistakenly _for him then? He'd just accepted the orders that had put him in Takayama days before this - he wasn't even certain he had left Tokyo... _Moreover_, "Why do you even have this? Why mine?"

"I assure you it's not a joke," Yuuko said seriously, "And I find it's very useful to keep records of this country's movement and progress, don't you? You'd be amazed at what you can find in the details."

"They're clippings from fucking gossip rags. There is nothing of value here," he snarled.

"Perhaps. But they're useful enough in their own way," she continued, "For comparison to actual reports from the capitol, if nothing else."

"You're a traitor…"

"I am most certainly _not _the traitor," she said sternly and pulled the book back to face her, "Now, the real question is: why is a man who has "died" twice standing in my office, looking as if he's about to tear my throat out?"

"_That _is obviously a mistake," he roared, stomping closer to lean against her desk. He was not going to be fucked with like this – if she wanted to play games, he was more than happy to pull them out of the realm of the psychological and back into physical reality. "A printing error."

Very calmly, she flipped back to the pages he had been studying only moments earlier. "So many printing errors, from so many sources," she murmured, her fingers dancing across the pages.

He snatched the book back. She was at least being truthful in _that _– his name was splashed across clippings on the following pages as well, and there at the heart of it all was a heart wrenching sob story penned by none other than General Reed himself, lamenting the end of the Suwa line and recounting the many deeds of bravery performed by the family across generations. He checked the date and scoffed. "This is fake," he announced, shoving the book back toward her, "I've spoken _directly _to the general after this date. This was right after I was stationed at Takayama – he visited there only moths after this!"

"Ah yes, _Takayama_," she said thoughtfully, "That would be where Fay collected you, yes? That's still quite the frontier – were you there for the entire three years?"

"Of course I was – you don't just get to leave."

"Proving your mettle?" she grinned at him.

"My _what_?"

"Well surely you knew people expected you to fill your father's shoes, once you had come of age, proven yourself on the battlefield."

"_Tche_," Kurogane snorted, "I was there to protect Nihon. Nothing more, nothing less."

She screwed up her face, "Not much _Celesian _action out that way. In fact, I don't recall hearing about much action at all that way, until most recently."

He sighed and hung his head. "We were assigned to quash a local uprising."

"Ahh yes, protecting the country from itself. A _noble _cause, indeed. Still, I find it hard to believe that it took an entire regiment three years to put down a farmers' rebellion."

Rage smoldered behind his eyes. _This fucking witch…_ "It took longer than expected. Some _traitor _was supplying the locals with artillery."

"_Calm yourself_, Youou," she insisted, eyes growing wide, "I am not a petty arms dealer who supplies farmers so they can ride to their doom against the military. And stop clenching your jaw like that – you're bound to burst a blood vessel." She laced her fingers together and leaned forward, he expression far more gentle than it had been previously, "I, like you, am simply trying to make sense of these events. Now, did it take you the entire three years to put down the rebellion?"

"No, about two and a half. We were just finishing up fortifications when-"

"When?"

"We were ambushed."

"By Celes."

"Yes."

"And you're certain."

"_Yes_."

"You saw the Celesian insignia on flags, uniforms? Heard Celesian commands?"

"I-" he paused, trying to remember. He didn't like where this conversation was heading - _there was no way in hell he'd been betrayed by the army he served_ - and he was determined to cut it short, if only he could remember exactly what had tipped him off that it was Celes attacking. He hadn't _needed _any proof at the time – who else was going to attack them with that amount of fire power? Certainly not any rag-tag band of rebels – they had been a damnable pain to put down, but they had relied on stealth and guerilla tactics, not an outright assault. _Why the fuck was that obituary still burning in his mind's eye?_"Had to have been insignias," he decided at last.

"Fay said he found you in the late morning, and that the ground was still smoldering."

"And?"

"That would imply an early morning attack," she said simply.

He was growing tired of this game – he had been there himself, he could have told her that much. He knew damned well what she was implying with this line of questioning and there was _no way_ he had been that much of a fucking _fool_not to have seen it himself. "Just say what you mean," he growled.

"What I _mean_," she said quietly, "Is that it would have been dark and your vision skewed by the explosions. You claim to have seen Celesian insignias, but I wonder how accurately you could have seen them amongst all that."

"_The fuck?_" he slammed his hand against her desk, shaking the entire thing and producing an incredibly satisfying flinch from the witch leant across it, "You're suggesting that we were stationed there to be ambushed by our own men – if that was the case, why bother letting us go for three years? Why not just ambush Takayama itself, burn it to the ground and kill all the people there from the start?"

"You misunderstand," she said quietly, and _god_, he liked her better when she was loud and obnoxious; whatever tended to follow from these moments of sincerity was proving to be far worse than the taunting, "Takayama itself was not burned to the ground. It was only your regiment that was destroyed. In fact, the city itself is being declared a new tactical outpost in direct response to the attack – the only organized military presence in the Western territories, I might add."

Kurogane stared, dumbstruck. He had no reason to believe any of the words coming out of this woman's mouth, but he was having difficulty finding any measure of dishonesty in the way she spoke; however absurd the trash she spewed seemed to him, it was apparent that she herself believed it. He backed away from the desk, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

"I have the reports, if you'd like to see them," she offered.

"No, I…" he fumbled.

"I understand that this is a shock," she said, and her voice was surprisingly soothing, "I had hoped to find a better way to breach the topic, but it seems bluntness is always the best route with you. Can I offer you a drink?"

"No."

"Shame," she frowned, "It's an awfully nice vintage, too." She stepped around the side of the desk and placed a hand on his shoulder, her face growing serious once again. "I'm afraid I'm not able to clarify this any further, which is why I had hoped you'd be able to shed some light on what had actually taken place in Takayama. Since it seems you have a stake in this as well, I'd like to offer my services in tracking down information on what exactly transpired. I have access to a fairly extensive network-"

"I refuse to be in any more debt to you," he said quietly and shrugged the hand from his shoulder.

"I also understand that the words of a lowly doctor headquartered out in the wilderness aren't worth very much to a man of your stature," she smiled and stepped away, "And even less when you suspect me of managing all manner of criminal activity from here. So, I won't trifle you with this again. The offer, however, shall stand for as long as you remain in our company."

He nodded, now resolved more than ever to break free of this place and return…well, he didn't know exactly, but some place that was more _home _than here. He was overly startled by reading his own obituary, he decided – there was no other reason for him to be this shaken by the words of a crazy woman otherwise. Once he was removed from here, he could sort out this business with the newspaper and hopefully, _hopefully_-

_Fuck it all, just how good was her "information network?"_

"Doumeki, if you're quite finished lurking in the doorway, you can come in," Yuuko announced suddenly, interrupting his thoughts.

"My apologies," a quiet voice sounded from behind the door. There was a quiet shuffle as the latch was shifted and the door pressed open to reveal two men standing behind it, "We were told you were busy." He extended his arm forward, shuffling a visibly upset Fay into the office from behind him. "Saiga sent news."

Yuuko frowned. "I see," she said simply and motioned for Fay to take a seat opposite her. "We'll discuss it now. Doumeki, if you could take Kurogane to the kitchen and get him something to eat, I'm sure he'd be _most_obliged," she nodded between Kurogane and the exit, "Probably something to drink as well – it's been a long afternoon on all fronts, it would seem."

Doumeki nodded politely and motioned for Kurogane to follow him. Once again, it seemed, he was not to be left alone, but at least this time his keeper seemed relatively…_stable_. As long as his spastic counterpart was not involved, that was. Kurogane cast a final glance back at Fay, wondering what had him so upset, as he followed Doumeki back into the maze of the library.


End file.
